


Recovery

by LtLJ



Series: Retrograde [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character of Color, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Independent Atlantis, Team, lost colony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-15
Updated: 2006-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis recovers after the attack, and the Daedalus prepares to leave with most of SG-1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> Cover by Tripoli, art by Ileliberte

John leaned casually against the transparent wall in Elizabeth's office, trying not to look like it was holding him up. Over his headset, he heard one of the patrols give another section of the city the all-clear. He wanted to go up to the jumper bay to check on Stackhouse, who was coordinating the arrivals, getting personnel sent to the cleared sections of the city, or sent off to join the teams that were in charge of repair and clean-up. But the _Daedalus_ was about to beam down a load of supplies to the gate room, and he wanted to be there for that more. Just in case.

"You do not look well," Teyla said, watching him with a lifted brow. Teyla, Deona, and the twins were all standing around the office cradling P-90s, waiting for him to collapse. John suspected that Elizabeth had detailed them to make sure he didn't get either killed or captured again, since he hadn't been able to move without stepping on one of them since returning to the city.

He threw Teyla a quick smile. "Nobody looks well." All the Marines needed downtime. But nobody could rest yet. General Hammond's people were still trying to extract an _Iapetus_ crew manifest from its computers, so they could make sure they were all accounted for. When John had passed that information on to Bates, Bates had said, "Right. I'll hold my breath."

John figured if had done nothing else here in the past three years, he had at least managed to ruin Bates for regular military service. With his luck, they would both end up transferred back to Earth and posted together in Antarctica, or possibly somewhere more remote. Surely the SGC had a moon base by now.

"But you are the only one who had to have an emergency operation, Major," Deona pointed out before Teyla could. "Dr. Beckett says that you should be resting."

"Can we send to the village?" John asked Teyla. "I need some more Athosian women to kick my ass and push me around."

An instant later he wished he hadn't made the old joke; four of their Athosian recruits hadn't survived the attack and one had been Lianin, Teyla's first trainee. But the other women just gave him the indulgent smiles reserved for the occasion.

Across the open gallery John could see Elizabeth through the open panels of the conference room, with several department heads and a collection of laptops, trying to make sense of the mess the Iapetans had made of their databases. Halling, barely recognizable under the bruises, one eye still swollen shut, was sitting in one of the chairs, Jinto perched on the table beside him. "Halling needs to be in the infirmary," John pointed out.

"He is as stubborn as you," Teyla countered. "But there is the ceremony. Halling will wish to perform that before he rests."

_Right, the ceremony,_ John thought. He took a deep breath. "After we get the supplies in, and SG-1 leaves, Halling can have the gate room."

Teyla shifted uneasily. "And I am not sure it was a good idea to let them into the city," she said, stepping up beside him. She looked out over the operations gallery, her brow furrowed.

"Teyla...." John shook his head, and decided to answer the question she was really asking. "It's going to be okay."

Teyla took a sharp breath. "I know you all want to believe that we are not being tricked, that they will return with the proof of their good intentions, and I admit it seems likely." She looked at him for a long moment. "But I can see you are still worried."

"Not about that." John pushed off the wall, ran a hand through his hair, trying to focus his thoughts. "Where are they?"

"Colonel Carter is with Dr. McKay and Dr. Zelenka and some others, touring the lower sections," Deona reported. "The others are--"

"Hey." O'Neill popped into the doorway suddenly. The Athosians all flinched. "You got a pair of scissors?"

John stared. "General?"

O'Neill winced and waved a hand vaguely around his head. "I gave a little girl some gum, she put it in her hair...."

"Right." John looked at Elizabeth's ransacked desk. "I...have no idea."

"I will find the girl and take care of it," Teyla said hastily.

"Oh. Good. She's the one with the--" O'Neill made another vague gesture. "You'll be able to tell."

As he headed off down the gallery, Teyla stared after him. She said, "I begin to believe that he is not doing this to disarm us."

Distracted, John said, "Doing what?"

Teyla just lifted a brow, and exchanged a rueful smile with Deona.

  
***

  
Cameron Mitchell stood in the gate room of the city of Atlantis, at the top of the gallery steps, underneath a tall stained glass window, in a tower thousands of feet above the impossibly blue sea. _In the gate room,_ Cameron thought, still trying to get it through his head, _of Atlantis._ Below, expedition Marines -- _Atlanteans,_ Cameron reminded himself. _They call themselves Atlanteans_ \-- were clearing the embarkation floor, getting ready for the supplies to be beamed down. He had no idea where the rest of his team was; he was just taking it in, trying to get a feel for the place before they had to beam up.

Then Jack O'Neill walked up to him. He eyed Cameron for a moment, then said, "So here's the deal. I want you to stay here with Daniel."

Cameron said what he was supposed to say, which was, "Yes, sir." Then he said what he was thinking, which was, "They going to go for that?"

"Nah." O'Neill waved a hand. "I'll talk 'em into it."

"Right." Because Jack O'Neill talking the Atlanteans into things had gone so well so far. Cameron looked across the gallery, to cover up the fact that his head had just reeled. Expedition members were working at various stations, getting the city back into operation. He saw Sheppard come out of Weir's office and head down the steps to the gate room floor, trailed by Teyla and the other Athosian Amazons. The man was hollow-eyed and pale, still dressed in the worn and battered uniform pants and black shirt, carrying a P-90 like he was physically fused to it. "Why me? Sir."

"You're good at first contact." O'Neill gave him a look. "This is like a first contact."

"Jackson's good at first contact, too," Cameron said, but he thought it was a lost cause. And he wanted to stay, he wanted to see more. He just didn't think it was a good idea.

O'Neill snorted. "Daniel's going to disappear into the bowels of the city and not come up for air until we get back. He'll do that anthropology thing." He waggled his fingers in illustration. "Go transparent, become one of them. Everybody here knows him anyway. They're used to him. I want them to get used to somebody new."

Cameron got it, he really did. They would know Daniel was here to see the city, to read their reports, look at their data, hear their stories. Hell, he had worked with most of them in the Antarctica project three years ago. And Daniel was an expert at making friends with human non-Earth cultures. And this, however it had started out, was now a human non-Earth culture. "And you're punishing me for beaming down to the planet and getting taken hostage."

O'Neill nodded earnestly. "Oh, yeah. That too."

Cameron had the feeling this wasn't going to go over well with anybody. At least O'Neill wasn't suggesting he take Daniel's place. That would have meant a fight to the death, and Daniel was vicious and sneaky when cornered. "And when you guys get back, is Carter going to put ground glass in my coffee?"

"She'd never do that." O'Neill looked across the gallery and finished, "It would be something subtle. Something...nuclear."

It was really, really hard to tell when O'Neill was kidding.

O'Neill wandered off, presumably to begin persuading Dr. Weir. Cameron decided the first thing he needed to do was talk to Sheppard.

But then the blue Asgard beam shimmered and the crates appeared on the embarkation floor. The supplies had been brought along aboard the _Daedalus_ just in case the expedition had survived, and included ammo, weapons, rations, medical supplies, plus a hastily-gathered care package of DVDs, candy, and junk food the crew had just contributed.

As Cameron went down the steps, the boxes were immediately surrounded by the Marines and a crew of techs with what was apparently Ancient biohazard scanning gear. Sheppard was pacing around the outside of the circle, intent and focused. Cameron felt eyes on him, as the Marines and the Athosian women sized him up as a potential threat. He was careful to stay out of the invisible perimeter they had set up, careful not to make any abrupt movement when Sheppard passed within four feet of him. It occurred to Cameron that he would hate to have to fight these people.

Cameron watched while the techs scanned, then separated out the ammo and weapons, then scanned again. It wasn't until after that when they finally opened the food crates, with the care usually reserved for explosives, that he realized what must have happened. "The Trust gave you booby-trapped supplies," he said. That was the sickest thing he ever heard. God almighty, there were kids here.

Sheppard, standing over a tech who was wearing protective gloves and poking carefully through a ration crate, said, "Contaminated food. But it's SOP to test everything that comes in, and nobody remembered to tell the supply master not to bother with the crates from the _Iapetus_. He got some weird readings, so he sent samples to Biology. They found enough bugs to put the whole city out." Sheppard gave him a cynical smile. "That would have clued us in that something was wrong, but right after that they started shooting people, so the point was moot."

Teyla was looking at Cameron like she was waiting for him to stab Sheppard in the back so she could shoot him and then say "I told you so." It didn't help that he had no idea what Teyla's rank was, if she had a rank, if she was Sheppard's 2IC now that the Lieutenant was dead, or if Sergeant Bates was, or if any of them even had a clue.

The tech looked up at Sheppard and gave him a thumb's up. He nodded, and said, "Okay, let's get this stuff down to the labs." He glanced at Teyla. "Just tell Halling to let Grodin know when he's ready for the memorial service."

"Memorial service?" Cameron asked quickly.

Sheppard and Teyla were already out of earshot, following the techs, but one of the other women paused to answer, "Our ceremonies of farewell. For those killed by the Iapetans. We believe the ceremonies must be held as quickly as possible, and it has already been some days."

"I see. Thanks." Cameron watched her go, then headed back up the stairs to the gallery. He found O'Neill up on one of the interior balconies, watching Jackson examine some kind of complicated Ancient thingy that was either artwork or a very strange machine. There were a couple of Atlantean Marines standing by, close enough to keep an eye on things but far enough away not to look as if they were expecting trouble. Cameron stepped up beside O'Neill and said, "General, they're planning a service for the personnel lost during the attack. I'm assuming that includes Lieutenant Ford and the Marines, so I don't know if they'd want you here for that or not."

"Good point." O'Neill grimaced. "Hey, Daniel. Daniel. Daniel. Here, focus."

O'Neill snapped his fingers until Jackson looked up, glaring at him. "What, Jack, what?"

"They're doing a service later. I need to know if it would be insulting if I left, or insulting if I stay. Or both."

Jackson straightened up. "Hmm. Good question. It's a delicate point, with the Athosians involved." His face did something complicated as he thought it over. "Whichever it is, the expedition members should know that you knew about the service and were willing to respect their wishes."

"Right." O'Neill sighed. "Mitchell, go ask Liz."

"Yes, sir." Cameron turned on his heel.

He found Dr. Weir standing in the door of her office, telling Sheppard, "--others all asked to have their remains returned to Earth when possible, but last year Ford apparently changed his instructions. But, he was so close to his family, and now that we have the opportunity, I wondered if...."

Sheppard leaned his head against transparent wall and squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah, you're right. I think he just did that because he didn't think we were ever getting back. We just need to make sure they know not to open the--"

"Yes, we'll make sure." Weir touched his arm lightly. Then she tilted her head, and said, "Colonel Mitchell, did you need something?"

"Yes, ma'am." Even with her face drawn from exhaustion and wearing a slightly raveled civilian sweater rather than a uniform jacket, Dr. Weir had a way of making Cameron flash back to being fourteen years old and called into the principal's office. "General O'Neill wanted to ask if you would like him to stay for the services."

Sheppard exchanged an opaque look with Weir and walked away down the gallery. Dr. Weir folded her arms and considered for a long moment. "No, I don't think that would be appropriate, after everything that's happened," she said finally. "But tell the general I appreciate the offer."

It was a pretty clear dismissal, so Cameron thanked her and retreated. He looked after Sheppard, but he was already on the far end of the gallery, with Bates and a squad of Marines. Cameron grimaced, gave it up for now, and headed back to O'Neill.

  
***

  
Sam shook her head and leaned on the gallery railing. She was standing with Rodney McKay, looking down on a water treatment plant that was all waterfalls and metal sculpture, like a giant art deco fountain. The air flow coming across the treatment plant was cool and smelled of salt.

Radek Zelenka, Miko Kusanagi, and Drs. Simpson, Kavanagh, and several others were partly giving her a tour, partly surveying the city systems for damage. Though this section had been cleared, they had an escort of two Marines and a young Athosian man; she wasn't certain if that was because of the possibility of escaped _Iapetus_ crew or for her benefit. She said, "I can't believe how much you've done here. This must be an incredible thrill, to wake up every morning and be able to work with this technology."

Rodney's mouth twisted into the familiar sarcastic grimace. "Oh yes, it's a thrill a minute. Except of course for that week where we all thought we were going to die. Oh, wait." He snapped his fingers. "That's every week."

Sam gave him a rueful smile, then asked seriously, "Do you regret coming here?"

Rodney sighed and rubbed his face. He still looked tired. He was pale and he obviously hadn't taken time to shave in the past day or so. "I can't answer that right now. Maybe ever. I have too many dead friends."

Sam knew how that felt. "I'm sorry, but I know sorry doesn't help."

He sighed, looking up at the figured metal ceiling overhead. "Stop being so damn understanding."

"Okay," Sam said brightly. "I can't wait to go over your data and poke holes in all your theories."

He snorted. "Please, I'd like to see you try."

"If you send a report back with me, I'll tape my reactions to it as I read it," she promised him.

He gave her a look she interpreted as _yes, very nice, but I tire of your snappy banter_. Sam shook her head at herself. They wouldn't give her tools and let her work on the physical damage the Trust had done to Atlantis, so maybe she just wanted to repair something. Even if it was her old mockingly hostile comradeship with Rodney. _Change the subject, Sam,_ she told herself. "So what's it like here under normal conditions? Balancing research with maintaining the Ancient systems?"

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "I have it under control."

"Rodney," Sam said pointedly, "You had me kidnapped at gunpoint and held hostage. I get to be suspicious of you, not the other way around."

He rolled his eyes in annoyance, but said, "Fine. My schedule is fairly intense. Time spent offworld takes up a lot of time that could be spent on research, but it's entirely necessary. We've gleaned a great deal of data from the ruins of Ancient installations we've found on the gate network."

The words "ruins of Ancient installations" gave Sam a lump in her throat. She couldn't wait to read the expedition's reports. "You go on a lot of offworld research missions, then?"

"I'm on Sheppard's gate team." Rodney leaned on the railing. "It's...insanely dangerous, but our results have proven to be worth it."

Sam was startled. "Really? You go on regular gate missions?" _With Sheppard, of all people?_ she didn't add. She didn't know much about Sheppard except for the bare facts in the personnel files, and that Carolyn Lam had said he had almost managed to fight his way out of her sick bay while bleeding to death with internal injuries. Sam had had him pegged as someone a lot like Sergeant Bates: dangerous, pushed to the limit of endurance, and maybe already a little over the edge. "It's a four person team?"

"Yes. With Teyla and...Lieutenant Ford was the fourth member." Rodney's face twisted and he looked away.

Ford, the young officer who had been killed with seven other Marines and Athosians. Sam winced. _Change the subject,_ she thought. "So you get along with Major Sheppard?"

Rodney said stiffly, "We work well together."

"Rodney makes light of his accomplishments," Dr. Zelenka said, shouldering a laptop case as he came to stand at the rail with them. "Sheppard's team does not just research Ancient installations. There is much danger and hair's breadth escapes, and I owe many of my ulcers to worrying about them. And he and the Major fight constantly, like small angry children, but are very dear to each other." He gave her a wry smile. "The Major is very dear to us all. We all owe him our lives, several times over, and he is a good friend. Which is why everyone became so...incensed, when General O'Neill stole him from our gate room."

Incensed was a good word for it. And this was a different picture of Sheppard. Sam had expected there to be loyalty toward the military contingent, but this sounded like the relationships were much closer than just that. And really, after three years here, that only made sense. She wanted to ask more, but Rodney glanced at his watch and said, "We need to get back up to operations." He turned to where the others were putting up their laptops and equipment. "Get a move on, people. We don't have time for your usual leisurely outlook on saving our lives today."

"Stuff it, McKay," Kavanagh snarled, but shut down his laptop anyway.

  
***

  
Cameron hadn't expected to stay the night in the city. The _Daedalus_ wouldn't be leaving for a few more days yet, mainly because Weir and the other senior staff members were still putting together the data and reports that the ship would be taking back for the international Atlantis committee. It was getting towards the end of the day, and O'Neill and the others were going to beam back up to the ship for the night, hoping to be invited back the next day. Daniel was staying, of course, since he was the officially designated hostage, but when the rest of SG-1 gathered in the gate room to be get beamed up, O'Neill told Cameron, "You're staying."

"Sir? Dr. Weir agreed to it?" Cameron asked, startled.

"Nah," O'Neill said. "She hated the idea. Really hated it. But I talked her into letting you stay the night. You're keeping an eye on Daniel."

"Am I?" Cameron looked around. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. The last time Cameron had seen him, the expedition's archeology and linguistics teams had apparently accepted him as a combination messiah, Prodigal Son, and rightful ruler, and he had disappeared into the depths of the city with them.

"Sure." O'Neill added darkly, "Just try not to do anything stupid tonight."

"Uh, yes sir." Before Cameron could ask "like what?" Sam shoved his pack at him.

She said, "Here. They beamed this down for you." Her expression clearly said that she wanted to add, "You bastard."

"Hope they remembered my tooth brush," Cameron hefted the pack, added, "This was not my idea. I would have voted for you."

She didn't look appeased. "Yeah, right."

"Hey, the _Daedalus_ is going to be in orbit for a few more days. Maybe they'll let you come back down for another tour."

Sam glared. "Oh sure, another tour would be just as good as staying here for several weeks. Oh, go to hell. And take care of yourself."

Teal'c nodded gravely, O'Neill gave him a look that could be interpreted either as "that's my boy" or "finally got rid of him, what a relief" and then they beamed up.

Cameron looked around, found himself the focus of unfriendly glares from a number of Marines and the civilians working on the gallery. He smiled brightly, thought, _Boy howdy, is this going to be fun_ and headed for the steps up out of the gate well. He found himself being paced by one of the Sheppard's Amazons. At his inquiring look, she said, "I am Calena. I am to guard you."

"Nice to meet you, Calena. I'm Colonel Cameron Mitchell. You can call me Cameron." Calena had long dark hair, a classically beautiful heart-shaped face, looked about sixteen, and carried her P-90 with the ease and familiarity of a South American guerilla. Her expression was stony and gave absolutely nothing away. It might have looked like the Atlanteans weren't too worried about him, assigning such a young guard. But a Marine might have hesitated to shoot, because of Cameron's rank or his SG-1 patch; Calena wouldn't have that problem. "Anything I can help with? They still unloading the jumpers up there?"

"No. The flights are ended for the day." She hesitated, then said, "The ceremony of farewell will begin soon."

Figuring she wanted to be present for that, he asked, "And that's going to be here?" At her nod, he added, "Well, we'll just wait around for that, then."

  
***

  
The expedition members and Athosians had filled the gallery, the steps, the gate room floor, when Daniel showed up again. He stared at Cameron blankly and said, "Why are you still here?"

It was entirely possible Daniel had had no idea that Cameron was staying for the night. They had been in the gate room when Jack had said, "Hey, I'm leaving Mitchell with you."

Daniel had been staring at the Ancient writing on the stairway like somebody had just handed him the Venus de Milo's arms, and had said, "Mitchell who?"

"Jack left me here to die, remember?" Cameron told him now.

"Oh, right." Daniel nodded absently, and turned his attention to the Athosians spreading incense down on the embarkation floor.

A lot of the ceremony was in Athosian and conducted by Halling, who was still limping, his face discolored with bruises. Sheppard had a part in it too, and at first Cameron wasn't so sure that was a good idea. Sheppard almost looked worse than when Cameron had hauled him out of a hospital bed on the _Daedalus_; pale and half-dead and like something was burning out inside him. But Halling managed it well for a guy who looked as if he should be lying in an intensive care unit himself. He coaxed Sheppard away from Dr. Weir's side, deftly led him through his part of the ceremony, then handed him back to Weir and Teyla. Cameron wasn't sure if the Athosians had needed Sheppard in the ceremony because he was the ranking officer or if it had something to do with the Ancient gene, because there were a lot of references to the Ancestors.

Cameron hadn't seen the video of the deaths in the gate room. Earlier, O'Neill and Teal'c had watched it with Dr. Weir on a laptop in her office. O'Neill had come out with twitching left eyelid and Teal'c's jaw was set in such a hard line he might have cracked teeth. They both went out on one of the balconies afterward, and Cameron hadn't followed. When Jack O'Neill lost his shit, it was better to give him space. Later, when Cameron had found Teal'c alone, he asked, "So I'm guessing it was pretty bad."

"The Trust has much to answer for," Teal'c had said. "I have considered remaining here in order to take up the duties of some of the murdered individuals. But I have decided they may be better served if I return to Earth. If the trials do not go as O'Neill wishes, I can hunt down the guilty and exact revenge."

As the ceremony drew to a close and people started to quietly move away, Cameron turned to say something to Daniel only to find he had vanished. _Well you know, I'm glad I'm not here to watch his back,_ he thought wryly. "Colonel Mitchell," someone said at his elbow. He turned to see Sergeant Bates, who didn't look so great either. His face was tight and tense, and he held himself like he was in pain. "Dr. Weir would like a word, sir."

"Lead the way, Sergeant," Cameron said easily.

Walking into Dr. Weir's office, Cameron could feel Sergeant Bates' eyes boring into the side of his head. Weir was sitting at the desk and Teyla was standing by the wall, cradling a P-90 and looking at him with restrained loathing, like he was something slimy and possibly acidic she needed to scrape off her boot. At a nod from Teyla, Calena stopped at the door.

Cameron took a seat, giving Dr. Weir what he hoped was a confident and not guilty smile. "Dr. Weir."

Dr. Weir steepled her fingers and said, "Colonel Mitchell. I wanted you to know, I haven't agreed to allow you to stay here yet. I'm going to be making that decision in the next two days, obviously before the _Daedalus_ leaves."

"Yes, ma'am, I was aware of that."

She eyed him thoughtfully and added, "And I understand that you outrank Major Sheppard, but I hope you realize that if you did stay here, there would not be a place for you in our chain of command."

"Oh, yes, ma'am. That was understood completely." Yeah, this was why he had needed to speak to Sheppard first, but there hadn't been an opportunity. Bates' cold eyes narrowed and Teyla lifted a brow, her face a study in skeptical suspicion. Cameron tried another smile and added, "That's not why I would be staying."

Dr. Weir smiled back. It wasn't a cold smile, but it didn't give anything away, either. "And why would you be staying?"

"Well, General O'Neill thought it might help the situation if there was a representative of the SGC here that you could get to know...better." Dr. Weir just lifted a brow, and Cameron rubbed his forehead. "Dr. Weir, I swear, it made sense when he said it."

The thing was, nobody in Atlantis was willing to believe just how thoroughly O'Neill got what had happened to them, what had happened here. Nobody who met O'Neill for the first time could miss the fact that he was a little nuts, but he was also really good at what he did, and a big part of that was walking into situations like this and evaluating them. Cameron knew O'Neill had taken one look at the _Apocalypse Now_ Marines and the Amazons and the Dead End Kids and the commando scientists, and knew there was no way Atlantis could be treated like a normal military base anymore.

Unimpressed, Dr. Weir tapped a pen on the desk, her expression bland. Cameron tried not to be intimidated by that. She said, "I take it you would be compiling a report."

"Well, on my experience here in the city, yes." Cameron caught himself making a vague O'Neill-like gesture and folded his hands. "I'm not your enemy, Dr. Weir, anymore than Dr. Jackson is." _Who could be here now, backing me up, but is not. The bastard._

Two more deliberate pen taps, and Dr. Weir smiled. "Very well, Colonel. Sergeant Bates will find you somewhere to sleep for tonight. We're a little short on living quarters, at the moment."

"Thank you, Dr. Weir," Cameron said, and just hoped Bates and Teyla didn't grab the opportunity to frag him.

  
***

  
A few hours after the ceremony, John was sitting in the messhall with Rodney and Teyla. The room had been mostly cleaned up, the tables and chairs set upright again, and he could hear some people talking and moving around in the back, where the kitchens were. "Am I supposed to write a report on all this?" John rubbed his face. The big windows leading out onto the balcony framed the sunset, flooding the room with warm light. Except for bullet scars on the doors and the burned panel where an _Iapetus_ crewman had killed himself trying to escape, the room almost looked normal. Or no worse than it did after a Christmas party or an Athosian Harvest Festival.

Most of the Athosians and the other refugees who had been living in the settlement were going to be staying in the city for the duration. According to the brief survey Stackhouse and Deona had made late this morning, the place was completely trashed, with supplies taken or left to rot, tools destroyed, water supply contaminated. Donner must have wanted to make sure no one could use the place after the _Iapetus_ left.

Rodney frowned at him. "A report on what?"

John shook his head, feeling vague. "Well, we were traitors or mutineers or whatever, I figured no more reports. Now it looks like we could end up part of the SGC again, and I don't even know where my laptop is."

"Did they take it from your quarters?" Teyla asked, watching him worriedly. "Perhaps we can find it in operations somewhere."

"Maybe." John shrugged. "My room is completely trashed, it might be under what's left of the bed." After the memorial service he had stopped by, figuring he at least had time to change shirts, and found the place looked like somebody had used C4 on it. He had just closed the door and gone on.

Rodney stared incredulously. "Your room is trashed? What the hell was the point of that?"

John let out his breath. "I don't know. Searching for stuff, I guess. Secret codes, Ancient technology, gold, jewels, dancing girls, dancing boys." He rubbed his eyes. "Am I saying all this out loud?"

"Did you back up the laptop?" Rodney demanded.

"Probably." Rodney flung his arms in the air and John glared. "Don't start with me, Rodney."

"There are empty beds in the infirmary. You should go there to sleep," Teyla suggested.

"Every time I fall asleep around Carson I wake up with a tube plugged into me somewhere," John protested.

Rodney eyed him sourly. "I wonder why that is. Could it be because you had abdominal surgery, oh, just the other day?"

John swore wearily. "I don't have time to sleep. You know, I don't even know what our supply situation is, if they were eating our food stores." Or if they had just shit all over it like they had the supplies at the Athosian village. Atlantis wasn't due any shipments from their trading partners for another month. And John didn't have one intact gate team he could send out to look for emergency supplies. Hell, he didn't know if they had anything to trade. Then he noticed Rodney and Teyla were staring at him. "What?"

Rodney lifted a brow at Teyla, then looked at John and said pointedly, "Do you remember the gate room? The crates in the gate room, that appeared in the big blue beam?"

_Oh, right._ O'Neill had sent them supplies, probably enough for weeks. And none of it was poisoned. "Crap. I forgot about that." He propped his chin on his hand and smiled at them. "I bet I'm going to the medlab now."

Rodney pushed his chair back. "You bet right."

  
***

  
The medlab looked a lot better than John thought it would. The lights were dimmed, reflecting off the copper walls, and there were only a few beds occupied. Halling was in one, John was relieved to see, asleep and hooked up to an IV.

There hadn't been any fighting in here, and it didn't look as if the _Iapetus_ crew had had a chance to do much looting. They had probably been concentrating on the Ancient tech labs first.

Beckett came out of his office, still in his lab coat, smiling. "Major, Rodney. Oh, it's good to be back here. I was beginning to think I'd never see the horrid place again."

Rodney prodded John forward. "He needs a place to sleep. And he's altered, he can't remember things that only happened a few hours ago."

John threw him a glare. "I am not."

"Rodney, don't use medical terms when you don't know what they mean," Beckett said calmly, taking John's arm and steering him across the ward.

John told him, "I just need a bed for the night. What's left of it. The night, not the--" He pressed his fingers to his temple. "I give up."

"I think that's a very good idea." Beckett pushed him toward a bed and John draped himself over it. He was starting to see the wisdom of this plan. A bed, a bed with a mattress and sheets, where he didn't have to worry about what anybody was going to do to him while he was in it.

"I'll just make you a chart," Beckett said, "So the nurses don't bother you."

"Umph," John said, and fell asleep.

  
***

  
Calena had made it plain that Cameron was supposed to stay in the living quarters area, but he was too keyed up to rest. Cameron suspected the living-quarters-only rule didn't apply to Daniel, and that he was off doing something interesting. Cameron was mostly just walking up and down the same three corridors.

When he saw Teyla come out of one of the transporters, he hurried to catch up with her. Though he didn't hurry too much, as he didn't want to get shot. "Oh, hey, Teyla! Can you tell me where Major Sheppard is?"

Teyla turned to regard him. Her stony expression made Calena's look downright friendly. "He is gone to rest."

Cameron nodded. "Right. That's probably a good thing."

Teyla narrowed her eyes at him and turned away.

Watching her go, Cameron sighed. He wished he could get through to these people like Jack wanted, but he kind of doubted that would happen. He turned to Calena and said, "I can't tell you how much all this doesn't matter. Dr. Weir could have a harem, Sheppard could have three wives and half a dozen kids, the science team could be running a meth lab and a floating crap game in the basement, General 'Don't Sweat the Small Stuff' O'Neill will not care."

Calena just stared at him grimly.

He sighed again. _Yeah, this is working out great._ "I guess I should go to my quarters."

Calena turned. "This way."

In the next corridor, they passed a little lounge, and Cameron stopped, startled. There was a group of people inside, gathered around a woman in science team uniform. She was sitting on the low couch, sobbing in a hopeless heartbroken way that hurt to hear. Sergeant Bates was crouched in front of her, holding her hands, talking quietly to her.

Cameron cataloged the other people in the room and made a wild guess: a gate team. Maybe not so wild. Stackhouse was there too, and he knew Bates and Stackhouse both led recon teams, and that each Atlantean team was made up of two military, one scientist, and one Athosian as guide and backup for the military members. There were three other scientists besides the woman who was crying, two Athosian men and a woman, all of whom looked...bleak. He was looking at the remnants of at least four gate teams. He glanced at Calena, and saw her expression was anything but stony. Quietly, he moved on.

He reached his quarters, which was a small room with copper wall panels trimmed with blue. It was bare and looked unused, his pack the only personal item visible. The single bed was stripped, though there was a set of sheets and blankets and a couple of towels stacked on it, and there was a crate for a bedside table and a little expedition-standard Earth-made desk lamp. He turned to Calena. "Are you going to lock me in?"

She frowned, puzzled. "You cannot be locked in."

"I can't?"

"The bathroom is down the corridor." She indicated it with a jerk of her head.

"Oh." _Well, no human rights violations here,_ Cameron thought. He smiled. "Good night, then."

He stepped inside. It was a little weird when the door closed for him before he reached for the crystal wall-unit thingy, but he assumed Calena had done it from outside. He went to his pack, and that was when he found the CD with a sticky note stuck to it, with Daniel's handwriting on it. It said, "Watch this."

Assuming it would take a while, Cameron made the bed first, then got his laptop out of his pack, got comfortable, and put the CD in.

It was a copy of the gate room video, the same footage that Jack and Teal'c had watched with Dr. Weir.

The executions of the first three Marines left Cameron cold and sick with anger. He had a stupid impulse to hope that Sam never had to see this, though God knew she had probably seen worse in person. Then they took Lieutenant Ford -- _Jesus, he's just a kid,_ Cameron thought -- and when they beamed him back he was still alive. Three of them had Sheppard on the ground by that point. There was screaming in the background, a voice hoarse with rage and pain, too distorted to identify but Cameron thought it might be Bates. Donner gave an order and they let Sheppard up, and though he had restraints on his wrists and ankles he flung himself forward enough to drag Ford into his lap. The lieutenant fisted a hand in Sheppard's shirt, then died.

Cameron thought that was going to be the worst, but he had forgotten the Athosian gate team. They pulled the three men out to kill first, doing them one at a time, while Halling tried reason and begging and creative bribery, offering gate addresses to sites where everything from Ancient tech to precious metals and naquadah lay in piles on the ground ripe for the taking. It was nothing Sheppard and Bates and the other Marine sergeant hadn't already tried. They left the woman for the last; she had been huddled between Sheppard and Halling the whole time they had been killing the rest of her team, shivering. She was clutching Halling's arm with her bound hands, but her face was buried against Sheppard's shoulder. When they came to take her, Cameron thought about Teyla and Calena, about Weir and the Asian scientist who had been beamed up to the _Daedalus_ when Jack had grabbed Sheppard and McKay. He thought about Sam and Hailey and Carolyn and Novak, and then he had to stop the playback.

He didn't wonder anymore at Calena's stone face, or why the Marines watched him with cold wary eyes and the women scientists shifted away when he smiled at them.

  
***

  
"Umph," John said, and opened his eyes, squinting at the infirmary ceiling. Morning light played across it from the open windows.

"Are you awake?" Elizabeth asked. He rubbed his face and squinted at her. She was standing carefully out of range, waiting for him to get completely conscious.

"Yeah. I think." John shoved himself upright. The medlab's morning shift was here, checking the patients, pulling boxes off the metal shelves for inventory. "What's up?"

"Here." Smiling, Elizabeth stepped closer to hand him a mug. "I have the feeling it won't last long, so I wanted to make sure you got at least one cup."

"One cup of what?" John took it automatically, but the odor answered his question. He took a deep breath, sipped cautiously. "It's coffee. Actual coffee. Not a hallucination."

"It's been so long, I forgot how you take it."

"I don't remember either." He grinned at her. "You brought me coffee, Elizabeth. Will you marry me?"

She smiled indulgently. "And what about Rodney?"

"We'll adopt him."

He looked up to see her watching someone past his shoulder. John had a moment of _you know, with my luck, that's--_ Then she lifted a brow and said, "That's a running joke, Colonel Mitchell."

John managed to swallow the coffee before it got into his lungs. Mitchell was standing a short distance away, trailed by Calena. Or maybe her twin sister Itasa; John could never tell them apart and he couldn't remember which one was supposed to relieve the other.

But Mitchell said, "Yes, ma'am, I got it. It's an old Crosby and Hope routine, with Dorothy Lamour."

"Good morning, Colonel." John thought he might be able to size up Mitchell better if he could run into him at a time when he wasn't busy coughing up blood on General O'Neill's boots, or bare-assed in a hospital gown and drugged out of his mind, or hunched over a cup of coffee and proposing to his boss while looking like he had been on a week-long bender. "It is morning, right?"

"Yes." Elizabeth smiled. "Staff meeting in forty-five minutes." She fixed her gaze on Mitchell. "Perhaps you'd care to walk me to the operations gallery, Colonel." It wasn't a question.

Mitchell looked startled. "Oh, uh, yes, ma'am."

Elizabeth walked Mitchell out. Calena or Itasa gave John a half-smile and a nod and followed.

John took a shower in the medlab's bathroom and shaved with the razor Beckett kept for when he slept in his office. Finished, he found one of the nurses had delivered an almost intact uniform that somebody had salvaged from his quarters. The pants were patched where the giant eel thing on M36-567 had almost ripped his leg off, but other than that, it looked pretty good.

He ate breakfast with Dr. Sayyar and the medlab's morning shift, and Rodney and Teyla stopped by. John managed to get three more cups of coffee by acting surprised every time someone brought him one. He keyed on his radio twice to call Ford, each time managing to catch himself before he said anything. On the way to the staff meeting, he caught sight of Andrae, a tall skinny dark-skinned Athosian kid, and froze for an instant until he realized who it was.

John found Elizabeth again on the control gallery, trying to read a screen over Peter Grodin's shoulder while holding a sleepy toddler. It was one of the kids from M76-677, dressed in an oversized Athosian sweater, with white paint daubed on his forehead in the pattern that showed what tribe he belonged to. Elizabeth said, "I'm going to have to assign someone to think up activities for the children, until we can get the settlement livable again," and handed the kid off to John.

The kid tucked his head under John's chin and promptly went to sleep. On the Mainland, under the Athosians' care, the kids had school and helping with the crops and learning to stalk and hunt and run from Wraith to occupy them. In the city, there wasn't much to do. John said, "How about Rodney?"

"Very funny," Elizabeth told him. She hesitated. "Colonel Mitchell wants to sit in on the staff meeting. What do you think?"

John saw Mitchell standing further down the gallery. He was watching Chuck and Larouqe trying to fix one of the damaged stations, and he looked bored. John just shrugged as best he could with the kid clinging like a limpet. "We're not going to be dealing with any sensitive issues, are we?"

"No, just repairs and...." She winced, her expression going bleak. "Personnel reassignments."

"Then I don't see a problem."

She nodded and John went on down to the conference room. He took a chair next to Rodney, who clutched his travel mug protectively and said, "I figured out what you were doing, you bastard. You got extra portions."

"Yeah, well, sue me." John was just hoping the new supplies didn't lead to a repeat of the Pudding Cup Mutiny.

Looking around the conference room as the rest of the senior staff wandered in, John noticed how exhausted everyone still was. Teyla had dark smudges under her eyes and Halling still looked like a refugee from a concentration camp. And it wasn't until Elizabeth came in with Mitchell that John remembered he was still holding a sleeping kid and didn't exactly present the picture of the ideal military commander. It tended to ruin the effect of actually having a mostly intact uniform. _Great thinking there, John,_ he told himself tiredly. It wasn't like anything he could do now would change what was going to happen.

He knew the others were still worried, and they had a right to be. But he also knew that the _Daedalus_ would bring the Atlantis committee as promised and Atlantis would end up reconnecting with Earth. The SGC would send a new military commander, who sure as hell wouldn't want the Major who shot his commanding officer on the first day of the mission in his command. And that was only the tip of John's iceberg.

John was also betting that the new commander wouldn't want Crazy Sergeant Bates who had held Colonel Carter hostage and threatened to blow up the _Daedalus_ on his staff either. He caught the weary expression on Bates' face, and wondered if he knew it, too. Bates met his gaze, and John thought, _Yeah, he knows._ He looked away before anybody could catch he and Bates having a moment together.

Teyla leaned in to ask him, "Are you all right?"

John smiled, said, "Yeah, I'm fine," and managed to steal Rodney's travel mug while Rodney was yelling at somebody for being stupid.

***

When Jack sat down at the table in the _Daedalus_'s mess at the start of first shift, Carter greeted him with an accusing glare. Jack smiled blandly back at her. "It wouldn't have worked out, you know," he told her. "McKay would never let you fiddle with their systems. You'd just be bored and mad--"

"Like I am now." She added sugar and cream to her coffee, still maintaining the death glare. Most of the crew for this shift had already finished breakfast and left, so they had the room mostly to themselves. "I can handle Rodney."

"Yeah." Jack nodded seriously. "That was great handling, when you got held hostage the other day--"

She lifted a brow. "Oh, this is a punishment?"

Jack rolled his eyes. Yeah, she was really pissed. "Of course not. By the time we come back, everybody will have calmed down and I can get you a stint there." The death glare was starting to lose intensity. Then Jack had to add earnestly, "Maybe as long as a whole week."

She set her cup down. "Sir."

Since he didn't want to spend the next four weeks watching his back, Jack relented. "Okay, a couple of months. At least as long as it takes me to pry Daniel out of there."

She looked a little mollified. "Thank you, sir."

"Besides, you're coming with me when I go back down there today."

Sam nodded, but her expression said she was humoring him. She said innocently, "And Dr. Weir agreed to that?"

"Of course not, I still have to talk her into it." He sipped his coffee. "I want to poke around a little more before I interrogate Donner."

Sam dropped the fake innocence and shook her head, grimacing. "That's going to be interesting."

"I was waiting until I could do it without beating him to death." He lifted his brows at her. "Teal'c offered to sit in for me."

She snorted. "Teal'c's terrible at interrogations."

"Where Donner's concerned, he's more interested in the beating to death part," Jack agreed.

"Something worrying you?" She eyed him thoughtfully. "Besides the whole...thing."

Jack shook his head. This was the first time he had tried to articulate this, but it had been turning around in the back of his brain all night, keeping company with the images from the gate room video. "I saw Donner for five minutes when they were taking him to the brig, and I got a gut feeling."

Sam frowned. "What kind of gut feeling?"

"He's too confident." Though that wasn't exactly it. There had just been a hint of "I know something you don't" in Donner's face, and Jack couldn't shake it.

Sam considered for a moment, her eyes thoughtful. "He's a fanatic. He probably thinks of himself as a martyr to their sick little cause." She let out her breath, and propped her head on her hand wearily. "This wasn't just about money or power and what the Trust could do with the Ancient technology. There was genuine hate in what he did to these people. He didn't just want to get them out of his way, he wanted to hurt them. He wanted them to feel betrayed by everything they thought they were fighting for."

"Yeah. It's the alien thing." Jack was betting the hate hadn't been a huge factor until after the Trust had arrived, and had seen the Athosians in positions of authority, wearing expedition uniforms. And the Ancient gene had to be an issue; here were all these people with an alien gene in their DNA. Never mind it was a gene from the people who had created the human race to begin with, who were so close to human you had to look at their DNA to tell the difference. Jack had the ATA gene too, and the Trust had to know that. Of course, he knew there was no way Donner had meant to let him leave Atlantis alive. But there was more to his gut feeling than that. Donner had the confidence of a fanatic, all right, but it wasn't just that. He looked away, grimacing. "There was something else."

"You're not going to be able to fix this in two days," Sam said.

Jack gave her a withering look. "I know that."

She lifted her brows and sipped her coffee, unwithered. "Uh huh."

He sighed and rubbed his face. Okay, maybe she was a little right. "All that aside, I still need to poke around some more before I tackle Donner. The more I know, the more I can get out of him."

Sam nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

  
***

  
They finished the staff meeting and everyone spilled out of the conference room back onto the gallery, talking, gesturing, clutching PDAs and laptops. John had a to-do list as long as both his arms, but a lot of it would have to wait until after the _Daedalus_ left. The city was locked up as tight as if they were expecting a hive ship visit, and he wanted to keep it that way for now. The first thing he needed to do was find his damn laptop or a replacement, and start reorganizing the gate teams. They had lost enough key people that maintaining the teams plus keeping enough men in the city for Bates' security patrols was going to be a logistical nightmare.

Of course, the first thing Rodney said as John stepped out onto the control gallery was, "I need your help with the weapons chair."

They had an audience: Teyla was still sticking with John like a bodyguard expecting an onslaught of paparazzi, and Deona was backing up Teyla. After hearing in detail just how much clean-up there was to do in the city, Bates still looked like he wanted to throw himself off a balcony, so John handed off the kid to him to give him something else to worry about. Mitchell was standing there too, like he had fetched up there after the meeting, and had nothing else to do. John asked Rodney, "It can't wait?"

"If it could wait, I wouldn't bring it up," Rodney said impatiently. "I need to make certain the alterations I made to the control grids didn't interfere with the chair."

"That section's secure," Bates said, absently patting the kid, who was making fretful noises as he woke up. John saw Mitchell trying not to stare incredulously. John knew Bates had a younger brother on Earth, and that he also did not actually eat babies, but it was funny to see Mitchell realize it. Bates must have noticed too, because he called one of the techs over and handed off the kid to him, saying, "Son, go find whoever's supposed to be watching the children and tell him Sergeant Bates would like to know why we keep finding them on the control gallery."

Rodney waved a hand. "I know the section's been cleared, but I need the natural gene to bring the chair online to check the grid, and of course Carson's useless with it. If those functions are damaged, we need to know immediately so I can pull out the connections I added. Though I'd like to keep the auxiliary systems in place if possible."

"Since it saved our asses." John sighed. "Okay, fine." On impulse, he turned to Mitchell and said, "Want to see the weapons chair, Colonel?"

Mitchell looked startled. "What, like the one in Antarctica? Sure."

Bates gave John the evil eye and John gave it right back. There was just no point in being obstructive; it wasn't like the Iapetans hadn't been all over the chair already, and the _Daedalus_ would have Bergstrom's data. And Bates' evil eye was nothing to Rodney's evil eye, which might actually be boring a hole into John's skull. Teyla, for once, appeared to be in complete agreement with both of them.

If everybody hated the idea, that settled it. John told Mitchell, "Let's go."

  
***

  
They took the transporter down to the bottom of the operations tower, met up with a few members of Rodney's staff, then started down the corridor toward the chair room.

"Doesn't look too bad down here," John commented. These corridors were mostly blue and silver, undamaged by fighting, the green bubble pillars burbling happily and the air in the recirculating system fresh.

"Yes, well, we can't say that about any of the lab corridors," Rodney said sourly. "I could have set lab 2 on fire and spread salt over the ashes and it would be in better shape. Zelenka can't even find the coffee pot. Bergstrom probably carried it off somewhere to dissect, thinking it was the key component to recharging the ZPM."

Mitchell said, "The Ancients had coffee pots?"

John could tell Rodney had been trying very hard to pretend Mitchell wasn't there and in fact did not exist at all. But Rodney couldn't let that one go, and turned to glare at him. "No, Colonel. But they did have little pots for heating water. I'm sorry if our use of technical terms confuses you."

Teyla didn't want Mitchell here either, but the level of snide that Rodney was managing to hit was obviously making her uncomfortable. Athosians had pretty strong feelings about good manners and hospitality toward visitors, which they still held onto despite it being mostly why they had ended up on Atlantis to begin with. "It will be good to get back to normal," she said, obviously trying to change the subject. She glanced at John, smiling. "I've missed our sparring sessions. I--" Then her expression froze and she threw a look at Mitchell.

John wondered what innocent comment Teyla had made in front of Donner or one the other _Iapetus_ officers, and what reaction it had gotten her. Okay, maybe he didn't have to wonder, maybe it was obvious. Keeping his expression non-committal, he said, "When she says sparring, she means sparring. She's been teaching me Athosian stick fighting."

Mitchell just said, "When I say sparring, I mean Teal'c beating the crap out of me. The man just never gets tired."

Teyla was still watching him with a closed wary expression and Deona's face was completely blank. It made John wonder just what had gone on with the Athosians in the city during the time the _Iapetus_ officers had been pretending to be a rescue mission. If there were things Teyla and the others hadn't told him because they had somehow thought it was normal behavior for Earth people. Rodney was eyeing Teyla thoughtfully, his mouth set in a grim line, and John knew he wasn't the only one wondering.

Mitchell asked, "So how did you guys meet?" Then he did a little hand-flailing thing and added, "And by that, I meant, how did the expedition meet the Athosians?"

_Weird_, John thought. They were usually the ones in his position, trying to have a conversation without insulting the crazy over-sensitive natives. Crazy over-sensitive native wasn't exactly a role John was enjoying here, but he felt committed to it now. Trying to sound more casual and less crazy, he said, "Athos was the first planet we went to in Pegasus, looking for a point to retreat to if the city's shields failed. Then I activated an old Wraith transponder trap, they showed up, and we all had to leave in a hurry."

"Yes, it was our first hive ship," Rodney said, sarcastically fond. "Ah, the memories. Tell him about the corpses stuck to the walls and the hive queen that pinned you to a table next to Sumner's dead body and tried to eat you."

"It was a memorable meeting," Teyla conceded.

"We got lucky," John couldn't help adding.

Teyla, well aware of the innuendo, gave him a dry look. She fixed the dry look on Mitchell. "So it is your duty to make friends with offworlders?" she asked, the blandness of her tone almost covering up the suspicious edge.

"Pretty much. Though it's really Daniel's department." Mitchell grinned reminiscently. "A while back, he made friends with the Unas. They're these reptile aliens, kind of like human-sized dinosaurs. They tried to make him part of their tribe once, and now they're all buddies. Ugly, ugly people. Mean, too." Mitchell took in their expressions and laughed. "Man, I am not making this up, I swear."

Deona asked hesitantly, "There are many aliens on Earth?"

Mitchell glanced back at her. "No, not many. There's a few Asgard that are there as consultants in the 303 program, like Hermiod up on the _Daedalus_." John had seen that Asgard and remembered it pretty clearly despite the pain-killer-induced haze and being distracted by thinking that he was about to be executed with hard vacuum. It had looked like something that should be out in a field mutilating cattle. Mitchell continued, "And we have a lot of alien allies who come to visit the SGC. The Jaffa, like Teal'c, and the Tok'ra. Sam Carter, her father's a Tok'ra." Teyla and Deona's expressions turned incredulous and a little horrified. Rodney just rolled his eyes. "Well, he is now, he wasn't before-- Yeah, that's a really long story. Oh, there's the Nox, you'd like them. They look human, except they're all small and cute and fluffy, like those little plastic dolls you used to get at the fair. Okay, you guys probably didn't have those, but they're about this big and--"

  
***

  
Cameron managed to keep the conversation light, though it was something of a struggle. It was a relief when they finally reached the chair room. It was a big circular well, with soft lights in the dull silver walls that came to life as they stepped through the doors.

The chair was in the center of the room on a platform, and it looked a lot like the one in Antarctica, all blue and green mosaic and ornate silver. Cameron knew a few people who could get that chair to move or light up, but he had never seen anybody really get the thing going except for Jack. But when Sheppard stepped up onto the platform, the lights came on in the chair's base and he heard it power up. Cameron's brows lifted and Sheppard shrugged, saying, "It's happy to see me."

Everybody seemed to know what to do, the techs heading toward various spots in the room to pop panels off the walls or the floor and connect their monitoring equipment. McKay sat on the edge of the platform, opening his laptop. He eyed Cameron with what seemed to be a combination of scientific curiosity and derision. "Do you have the Ancient gene?"

Cameron shook his head. "Yeah, but I could never make the chair in Antarctica do anything but light up."

"This one is more responsive," McKay admitted reluctantly. "The chairs can't function fully on anything other than a ZPM with a significant level of charge."

Sheppard was watching Cameron, too. "Try it," he said. "Put your hand on the access plate."

Cameron shrugged, stepped up on the platform, and put his hand on the silver plate. It was cold, and the chair didn't so much as quiver. "Nope, nada, zip--"

Sheppard stepped closer and put his hand on top of Cameron's.

And just like that, he was falling. Diagrams, figures, words in a language he couldn't understand scrolled through his brain. A view of the planet from space, the brilliant blue sea streaked with clouds, the spreading mass of green and brown that was the continent. He felt the Ancient defense satellite, cold and old and immense. He could see the _Daedalus_ and the _Iapetus_ in close orbit together, felt them as alien, radiating unfamiliar energy like pinpricks against his skin.

McKay cleared his throat pointedly and Sheppard stepped back, and it was gone. Cameron blinked, lifted his hand to his head. "Whoa." He felt like his skin should be burning from the cold of space, but there was nothing but the ghost of warmth from Sheppard's hand. "Does it feel like that-- It can't feel like that all the time. Is it always--"

Everybody was watching him, the scientists thoughtfully, the Athosian women without any expression whatsoever. Sheppard actually grinned. McKay just huffed impatiently and consulted one of the techs across the room with a glance. The man gave him a thumb's up, and he said, "At least we know it still works."

Then an alarm went off, echoing through the city comm system. "Unscheduled activation," one of the techs said, her face worried.

"Crap," Sheppard muttered, and touched his radio. Everyone's expressions were tense as they listened to their headsets. Then Teyla exchanged a startled look with Deona, and McKay snarled, "Oh, that's all this day needed." Sheppard just frowned and said, "It's the Nones."

  
***

  
Rodney bitched about the Nones all the way back up to the operations tower, which didn't help John's mood any. "We're busy here trying to stay alive! Why do we have to drop everything because the Nones have a hangnail? They have no sense of survival whatsoever!"

"Yes, Rodney. Because they have no sense of survival whatsoever, that's why," John said sharply. They had met the Nones when the Genii had managed to capture Stackhouse's gate team and a group of scientists in an Ancient ruin. The Genii had taken them to another planet and John had had no idea in hell where to look for them. But the Nones had been camped in the village near the Genii safe house, and had seen the prisoners brought in. Having general moral objections to this, Tellan, the None leader, had managed to secretly dig a small opening in their prison wall, just enough to talk to them. They had given him the gate address of the planet they had been taken from and a message, and Tellan had sent some of his more reliable people to deliver it. Then when John had arrived with a rescue team, the Nones had distracted the Genii by running around, getting in the way, making a lot of noise, and nearly getting themselves killed. And this was before they had decided that the Atlanteans were Ancestors returned to Pegasus and vowed their eternal loyalty.

"Which is the whole point of my 'no sense of survival' point!" Rodney shouted. "They are going to get themselves killed sooner or later. There is nothing we can do to prevent that."

"But they never seek us out for help," Teyla put in, worried. "It must be some extreme circumstance."

"So who are the Nones again?" Mitchell asked cautiously.

Before Rodney could go off into another rant, John said wearily, "They're like a religious order, they worship the Ancients, they travel around and try to help people." Rodney wasn't wrong about the no sense of survival thing, and Teyla wasn't wrong either; the Nones never asked for help unless it was almost too late. It didn't help that the Nones also took in strays, people who were kicked out of other villages and camps by families who didn't want to take care of them, so a lot of their group was either in bad health or dumber than bricks.

"They think we are the Ancestors, no matter how we have tried to explain to them that this is not the case," Teyla added. "We have offered them refuge on the Mainland, but they will not accept. They feel it is their duty to help those who have suffered cullings."

"Cullings," Mitchell repeated. "That's when the Wraith come and...."

"Cull their herds of human cattle," Rodney finished grimly.

Peter Grodin met them at the transporter door on the operations level. "Could you get anything out of them?" John asked him as they started down the gallery toward the conference room.

Grodin shook his head, gesturing helplessly. "It was the usual confused conversation, I couldn't get much sense out of it. But there was a request for help."

John shook his head wearily. That meant it could be anything from a sick kid to a Wraith attack.

Elizabeth was waiting for them by the conference room. She looked as frustrated and weary as John felt. She said, "I hate to say this, but I think we're going to have to check it out."

"Yeah, I'm not happy about it either." John rubbed his forehead, already feeling the usual None-related headache. Since they had seen him fly a jumper, they had decided that John was King of the Lantians or something similar and he was the only one who could talk them into anything. "I'll have to go."

Elizabeth nodded grimly. "I'd like you to take at least two gate teams, just in case."

John shook his head. They had just gotten to the point where Bates had been able to let half the Marines and most of the Athosians with gate team experience go off duty for twenty-four hours. John didn't want to pull any of the others off patrol and gate room guard duty. And if John was going, he wanted Bates, Stackhouse, and Markham here. That left the gate team scientists, and while they were all trained to defend themselves, Dr. Baroukel had been the only one with real military experience. And the Iapetans had shot him. "I don't have two gate teams to bring right now. I'll take Teyla, Rodney, and Deona."

Elizabeth didn't look happy, but before she could say anything, Mitchell said, "Hey, you've got two experienced gate team members here with nothing else to do."

John's first impulse was to say no. Just about the last thing he needed right now was to have a higher-ranking officer looking over his shoulder on a gate mission. And Dr. Jackson was technically their hostage and one of the most valuable scientists in the SGC; giving him a chance to go out into the wilds of Pegasus and get killed just seemed crazy. What also seemed crazy was turning down the help of two veteran gate team members with combat experience. His expression must have looked conflicted at the very least, because Elizabeth told Mitchell, "If you'll give us a moment to talk this over in private, Colonel."

"Yes, ma'am." Mitchell gave her a nod and retreated down the gallery out of earshot.

John grimaced, trying to make himself think about this logically. "If we take them, we'll have to give them weapons. I'm not taking anybody offworld unarmed."

"It could be a test to see if we can trust them to that extent, at least," Teyla pointed out.

Rodney folded his arms, his mouth twisted. "You mean if they don't shoot us as soon as we hand them a P-90, we'll know they have our best interests at heart."

"No one really thinks that's likely, Rodney," Elizabeth said dryly. "If they wanted to take the city, I'm sure they could think of a better way to do it than that."

Grodin had been listening with an intent expression. He said, "I think that taking them along on a mission is an excellent idea. It would give them a first-hand chance to observe what our gate teams do here."

"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked. "They're going to be receiving copies of our reports."

"Yes, but it was stated by the _Iapetus_ crew that our sole interest in this galaxy was to find and acquire Ancient technology for our own benefit," Grodin told her. "I for one would like some independent witnesses to see the contacts we've made with the local populations."

Elizabeth tilted her head, nodding thoughtfully. "It's an excellent point." She looked at John. "Major?"

John took a deep breath. He didn't see a good reason to say no, and they didn't have time to talk about it forever. "I say we take them along."

  
***

  
"Got your dewrag on," Cameron greeted Daniel on the embarkation floor.

Daniel eyed him but had too much self-possession to adjust the dewrag in question. Atlantis had issued them both tac vests and headsets for the occasion, and a Marine Sergeant was standing by ready to hand them weapons. "Do we know yet if this is a humanitarian mission or a firefight?" Daniel asked.

"Could be either. Apparently these folks we're going to see don't have the best communication skills." Cameron was trying not to bounce with joy. He thought he had made a real inroad, here. Well, Sheppard had looked like he would rather have a spike through the head than bring them along, Teyla had clearly wanted to throw herself off the gallery for a second there, and McKay's expression of deep suspicion had just gotten more saturnine. So it wasn't so much an inroad as an admission of necessity, but still.

"Corrigan briefed me on the Nones while I was getting ready," Daniel said. The gate had been dialed and as the wormhole whooshed into existence, the Sergeant brought them their weapons. Sheppard, Teyla, McKay, and Deona were already geared up and ready, doing their final radio checks a little distance away. A MALP trundled up to the gate and vanished into the event horizon; Cameron knew they would wait until the gate operators got good telemetry. At least enough to verify that if they were walking into a trap, it wasn't right around the gate itself.

"Did they brief you on the Wraith?" Cameron asked, just to be certain. As he understood it was basically shoot on sight, and keep shooting, and for God's sake don't let one get within arm's reach of you or anybody else.

"Oh yes." Daniel's face set as he checked the P-90 and clipped it to his vest. "I've seen documentary video of a hive ship."

"Oh, good." Cameron checked his own weapon. He didn't want to see any more DV but he knew he didn't have the luxury of refusal. "It's not like I wanted to sleep at night."

Sheppard caught his eye and Cameron nodded, and they walked into the gate.

It was early morning on the planet, though the cloudy gray sky made that kind of hard to tell. The gate was in a grassy valley, hills rising up to one side with short scrubby green trees. In the distance, several hundred yards away, Cameron could see a little encampment with a scatter of small red-brown tents and smoke rising up from cooking fires.

"Life signs," McKay said, studying the little box that was the Ancient life signs detector. "Sixteen of them, behind that little hill."

Sheppard started forward, Teyla and Deona shifting to flank him. It was all very outwardly casual but predatory. Cameron followed, asking, "Nones?" He had to admit, he just liked saying "Nones."

"The Nones wouldn't hide," Sheppard said. "They know the MALP means we're coming."

They had nearly reached the hill when a group of people moved out from cover.

They were all young; Cameron would guess that none of them were older than twenty-five or -six. They were all skinny and attractive, too, like models, with pale skin and long dark or blond hair. They were dressed in mostly white, the women in long low-cut sleeveless dresses and the men in loose pants and vests or open shirts. Though this wasn't a cold morning, it was still very impractical clothing, especially compared to the warm and sturdy leather and knit outfits the Athosians and the Dead End Kids wore. _This just can't be good,_ Cameron thought. Something about these people was setting off every alarm in his brain.

Sheppard halted. He said, "Son of a bitch," in a tone which pretty much confirmed Cameron's thought.

"Well, at least it's fairly obvious why the Nones asked for help," McKay said with a disgusted grimace.

"Who are these people?" Daniel asked, frowning.

Teyla threw a look at him. Her expression was set with loathing, but for once Cameron didn't think it was directed at them. She said, "They are Wraith Worshippers."

Cameron felt his jaw drop. "Wraith what? Worshippers? Does that mean what I think it means?"

McKay said sourly, "If you think it means that they cooperate with the Wraith and help them find and cull other human populations, yes."

Daniel just nodded, his face grim. "It's not unexpected in this kind of situation."

Cameron began, "How is that remotely rational--" He waved a hand, thinking of the people who worshipped the Ori. Of course, the Ori worshippers hadn't known for a fact that the Ori were drawing their power from their deaths, and the Ori didn't eat people. But he should know better than to be surprised at any damn awful thing humans did to each other. Especially after watching the _Iapetus_ tape. "Never mind."

The group of Wraith Worshippers were moving towards them. They walked languidly, and there was something intent in their eyes that gave Cameron the heebie-jeebies. They weren't armed, that he could see. He thought he heard Deona actually growl under her breath.

The woman in the lead had long dark hair and a hungry expression. She stopped only a few paces from Sheppard, and said, "The Atlanteans come at the bidding of the Nones."

"We're just here to take out the garbage," Sheppard said easily. "Would the garbage like to walk out, or should we just drag it?"

The others spread out in a loose half-circle. Teyla tilted her head, watching them with narrow eyes. Cameron finally got what was freaky about their expressions; the whole group was watching them as if they were meat. Kind of like lust, but with no awareness that what they were lusting for was human. One of the women had sidled up to Daniel, who was watching her carefully. Smiling timidly, she reached out to touch his arm.

Sheppard turned his head just enough to tell her, "You put a hand on him, and I'll cut your arm off."

Cameron wasn't going to comment, not knowing much about this situation other than the fact that these people creeped him the hell out. Daniel said evenly, "That's a little harsh."

Teyla didn't take her eyes off the Wraith Worshipers. She said, "They carry locaters, and put them on people so the Wraith can track them to their living place and cull the inhabitants."

"Oh." Daniel lifted his brows. "Then that wasn't harsh."

"Shit," Cameron muttered under his breath.

"It is not just others, they give their own people to the Wraith," Teyla continued, her voice cold and angry. "The old, the infirm. Members of their own families. Anyone who does not want to follow their ways. They are--"

Sheppard said, "Teyla."

She pressed her lips together.

The leader was staring at Cameron and Daniel now. "That one is new, and that one. We have not seen them before."

The man beside her said, "Perhaps they are from the Atlanteans' homeworld. The Masters had heard whispers of it."

Cameron had to ask, "They know we can understand them, right?"

Sheppard answered, "They're imitating the Wraith, acting like we're just cattle. It's really annoying, so I'm going to go ahead and start shooting them in, oh," he glanced at his watch, "About thirty seconds."

The leader's face worked, the complacent calm giving way to fury and fear, just for an instant. Cameron had the feeling that she knew Sheppard wasn't bluffing. She said, "You said you would not kill us if we did not have the stunners."

Sheppard smiled. "Yeah, I was lying about that."

Watching the life signs detector, McKay said sharply, "There's six more, trying to work their way up behind us."

"I knew that, Rodney," Sheppard told him.

McKay waved the life signs detector in exasperation. "If you know and you don't need me to stand here and do this, then why did I come?"

"Well, Rodney, I thought you wanted to come visit the Nones because you like them so much," Sheppard said earnestly.

"Fine, then!"

Then Sheppard turned, stepped smoothly sideways and fired a three-shot burst. Moving automatically, Cameron lifted his P-90 to cover the group in front of them as Deona and Teyla turned to fire on the ones moving up behind. Most of them scrambled back, but one of the men actually lunged forward, making a grab for McKay. Cameron didn't have a clear shot, but before he could step in, Daniel slapped the man's arm away with his P-90, then followed up with a kick to the kneecap, sending him reeling away. Cameron fired a burst over their heads to keep the others running.

McKay had drawn his sidearm. He eyed Daniel warily and said, "Thanks."

Daniel's lips quirked. "You're welcome," he said absently. "They were armed?"

"Uh huh," Sheppard said. Cameron looked to see six bodies sprawled behind them. Sheppard toed an alien handweapon away from one outstretched arm. It was smooth and bullet-shaped, the grip a little bigger than necessary for a human hand. "Stunners. The Wraith use them to make feeding more convenient."

"I've got life signs--" McKay began sharply, then sighed. "Oh, it's them."

Sheppard said, "Now those are the Nones."

The people coming up the slope from the camp were dressed in robes the same red-brown as the tents over bulky clothing. They couldn't have provided a bigger contrast to the Wraith Worshippers if they had been trying to deliberately. Some were old, moving slowly, or limping; some had obvious birth defects or scarring on their faces.

The leader was a short round little guy with a gap-toothed smile, who walked right up to Sheppard. To Cameron's surprise, Sheppard lifted his P-90 out of the way so the guy could hug him. Apparently blissfully happy to see them and leaning trustingly against Sheppard, the guy said, "We could not dial your gate for two days. We were afraid the city flew away."

McKay clapped a hand to his forehead, moaning, "Oh, God, I forgot about the inappropriate touching."

  
***

  
Tellan led them into the circle of battered tents, the other Nones clustering around them. "You bring new friends," Tellan said, so smilingly oblivious to factions and undercurrents and politics that it made John feel stupid that it wasn't true. "But where is young Ford?"

John heard an indrawn breath from Teyla, and he answered before she had to. "He was killed."

"Oh." Tellan's voice held genuine dismay. "The Wraith?"

John didn't look toward Mitchell and Jackson. "No, someone else."

"It is wrong," Tellan said sadly. "That the young are hurt. Like the Runner."

"Yeah," John agreed. "It is." Then he processed what Tellan had just said. He stared down at him. "Did you say Runner?"

Tellan nodded earnestly. "Yes. That is why we called you. To help him. The evil ones who follow the Wraith had not come then."

Teyla was shaking her head incredulously and Rodney flung his hands in the air, muttering, "Yes, yes, this is perfect."

"Where is he?" John demanded.

"In there." Tellan pointed to a tent.

John ducked inside. In the small space, lying on a pallet of blankets, was a very big guy, unconscious. He had long dark hair in heavy braids, tattoos on skin that was dark with grime, the dirt streaked with sweat. His clothes were just ragged remnants of leather and cloth. A None woman sat beside him, just placing a wet cloth over his forehead. She looked at John worriedly and said, "He is very ill."

Outside, he could hear Teyla trying to explain gently to Tellan that helping Runners required you to act fast, not stand around chatting, and Rodney explaining to Mitchell and Jackson how Wraith chose some humans to hunt for sport. John asked the woman, "You found the tracker?"

She shook her head, her mouth pursed. "We could not, and I feared to keep looking, as he is already very weak. He knows it is in his back, and has tried to remove it himself, but with no success. Now his wounds are infected and he has a bad fever. He has been here two days."

_Two days_, John thought, appalled. The Wraith could show up any second to finish their hunt. The guy stirred restlessly, eyelids fluttering as if he was trying to fight his way back to consciousness. He looked badly ill, but still alive enough that it was worth a shot to try to save him. John keyed his radio. "Teyla, you and Deona go to the gate and dial Atlantis. Tell them we need Beckett, fast, to help a Runner. Tell them to send Markham with a jumper; we need to move."

Teyla replied, "I am on my way," and from her voice he could tell she was already sprinting for the gate.

"Rodney--" John began, and Rodney interrupted with, "Try to jam the tracking signal, yes, I'm on it."

The guy opened his eyes, saw John, and jerked back, scrambling almost back through the tent wall.

"Hey, hey, take it easy." John held up his hands. He said firmly, "We're going to help you."

The guy looked at the None woman, who nodded reassuringly. "They are friends. Lantians."

"We're not Lantians--" John started, but the guy snarled, "They won't listen to me. The Wraith will come for me and take them all. Even if I die, they won't--"

John interrupted, "You listen to me. I know you're a Runner, I know there's a tracker implanted in you. We have a doctor who can take it out, and he works fast. Just give us a little time and this will be over. You'll be free."

The guy blinked at him and suddenly looked very young under all the dirt and grime. He didn't answer, but he slumped back on the pallet, still staring at John. "They'll still come," he whispered finally.

"Yeah, they will, but we're going to get you and the Nones out of here before then," John told him. "Don't worry, we've done it before." He started to push to his feet and the guy grabbed his hand. John almost pulled away, his other hand tightening on the P-90, because sick or not this guy was huge. But the expression on his face was wary and hopeful and afraid, all at once. And John remembered Donner and Bergstrom and Gaines and the others assuring them that everything was going to be all right, and what happened after that, and he suddenly couldn't stand the thought that this man might believe even for one second that they were going to abandon him. He said into his headset, "Dr. Jackson, could you come in here?"

Jackson was already ducking under the tent flap before John finished. John asked, "Would you wait with him while we send for Beckett?" and suddenly felt stupid, asking the Milky Way Galaxy's leading Ancient expert who also happened to be the guy who saved Earth a few times and a former Ascendant to babysit a semi-conscious Runner because John was suddenly having an emotional breakdown here.

But Jackson said, "Of course." Settling cross-legged beside the pallet, he told the guy, "I'm Daniel Jackson. What's your name?"

The guy stared at him for a moment, then said, "Ronon. Of Sateda."

Jackson's candor must have come through because Ronon let go of his death grip on John. John backed out of the tent as Jackson was saying, "Tell me about Sateda, Ronon."

Outside, Rodney was sitting on the ground, working with his laptop and other equipment, a preoccupied frown on his face and two curious Nones huddled beside him, fascinated by the screen's cursor. Mitchell was standing nearby, his eyes on the treeline. John followed his gaze and saw the Wraith Worshippers crouched in the sparse brush in what they probably thought was concealment. _Yeah, that's all we need._ "What's the plan, Major?" Mitchell asked.

"We're getting these people out of here." John put two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. Tellan hurried over, and all the others started to pop out of the tents, staring at John attentively. "Tellan, you all need to grab your stuff and get to the gate."

Tellan got wide-eyed. "We cannot leave the Runner."

"We'll take care of the Runner," John told him, making his voice calm and reassuring. "Dr. Beckett will get the tracker out and then we'll take him back to Atlantis with us."

Tellan clapped his hands. "Oh, that will be wonderful!"

  
***

  
Beckett arrived within fifteen minutes in a jumper with Markham and a couple of the medical techs. "Major?" Beckett asked, stepping off the jumper's ramp.

John was listening to his headset, where Teyla was confirming that she had been able to dial back to Atlantis after the jumper's arrival. Keeping the wormhole open would prevent the Wraith from dialing in and the thirty-eight minute window should be more than enough to get the Nones through. "Emergency Runner-ectomy," John said, jerking his head toward the tent.

"Ach, here we go again." Beckett motioned for the techs to follow him with the stretcher.

John, Rodney, and Mitchell had the None camp almost broken down and the Nones moving toward the gate, with Teyla and Deona guarding the route to make sure the Wraith Worshippers didn't interfere. The scrambling around and hauling stuff was making John remember that he had spent the past two weeks in a cell with very little food and no exercise except getting the crap kicked out of him daily. The faint incision scar on his side was starting to ache too.

The jumper's landing distracted the Nones badly, but Mitchell herded them away from it and got them back on course. "No, no, no, now follow your friends, that's right," he said, shooing a group back toward the path. "None-wrangling, that's what I like." Jackson popped out of the tent, probably propelled by Beckett. Mitchell waved at him. "Daniel! Grab some Nones and head for the gate!"

"He's nauseatingly cheerful," Rodney commented wearily, helping a None bundle a tent up into a bag.

John had to smile. "O'Neill picked him."

"We are going to the city of the Lantians again," the None that Rodney was helping informed them happily.

"Yes, yes, you are," Rodney told him. "You've been rescued so many times you should have your own room." He added to John, "O'Neill picked you, and you're not--" He waved a hand. "Like that."

John didn't need the reminder. He took one of the particularly slow Nones by the arm and hauled him toward the jumper. "O'Neill didn't pick me, Rodney, he picked Sumner. The gene picked me."

Rodney looked up, frowning, calling after him, "What the hell does that mean?"

John didn't answer.

A short time later, Deona was reporting via headset that most of the Nones were through the gate when Markham broke into the channel with, "Major, the jumper's detecting multiple darts in atmosphere!"

John shouted, "We've got incoming darts, everybody in the jumper!" and started for the one remaining tent. Over the radio he added, "Teyla, get everybody up there through the gate now. We'll be right behind you. Markham, hit the cloak."

As Teyla's breathless, "Yes, Major," came back and the jumper shimmered and vanished, John tore the tent flap back and said, "Beckett, you'd better be done!"

"Just finished," Beckett told him hurriedly. John saw the techs were just lifting the stretcher with the unconscious Runner. Rodney was waiting anxiously by the ramp and Jackson and Mitchell were shoving the last few Nones into the jumper. "There's the tracker," Beckett said, nodding to the bloody little device where it lay discarded on the ground.

John stepped on it, grinding it under his bootheel until the case cracked. Then he followed the stretcher and Beckett toward the jumper, listening to Teyla confirming that the others had entered the wormhole and that she was just going through herself.

Then Markham shouted, "Incoming dart!" on the radio just as a stunner blast hit one of the med techs. The man fell, dropping his end of the stretcher. John spun, tracking the source of the blast. Three Wraith, two drones and a male, were moving toward them over the field and the whine of an incoming dart was loud in John's ears.

John opened fire, peripherally conscious of Beckett ducking back to grab the other end of the stretcher and Jackson dragging the unconscious tech. Then Mitchell and Rodney were beside him, firing as they backed toward the ramp. One of the drones dropped and the other two seemed to realize that the bullets actually hurt as they started trying to take cover.

Then the someone shouted that the stretcher was loaded, everybody was yelling in John's headset, Rodney was yanking on the back of his vest, and John had time to wonder why the hell he was still out here shooting. He turned and tackled Rodney back into the jumper, landing on Mitchell, who somehow flipped them all clear of the ramp as it lifted up. John didn't have to yell at Markham to get them off the ground because everybody else, including the Nones, already was.

John blinked sweat out of his eyes. He was on the floor with the unconscious runner and the stunned medtech, and Beckett was making sure both were still breathing. Rodney was crammed into the bench next to his head and Nones were huddled everywhere, most of them still yelling. He said, "You okay, Rodney?"

"Yes, I'm fine, you're insane and I'm sitting on a None, but everything's just fantastic!" Rodney snarled, and smacked John in the head.

"Rodney, that's not helping!" Beckett said as John winced.

Jackson was shushing the overexcited Nones and as they quieted John heard Markham say tensely, "Major, there's a dart between us and the gate."

"I'll take care of it," John said, closed his eyes, and told the jumper to fire as soon as it could lock on target. He felt the gentle thrum as the jumper released two drones; the blast of the exploding dart was barely audible through the shielding. He opened his eyes to see Mitchell leaning over him.

"So this is pretty much your normal, run of the mill, Pegasus Galaxy mission?" Mitchell asked, but he was grinning.

"Yeah," John said, breathing hard and starting to smile in spite of everything. "Pretty much."

***

 

The jumper shot through the stargate, the automatic safeties engaging and stopping it dead above the embarkation floor. The Nones cheered.

As it lifted up through the doors into the bay, John was on the radio with Grodin, getting confirmation that the gate's shield had been raised. A dart had never managed to follow them through yet, but there was always a first time, and John's luck had been crap lately.

The jumper settled on the bay floor as the doors down to the gate room slid closed. As the ramp lowered, the Nones, used to the drill by now, all leapt to their feet to clamber out. Most of them managed not to step on John, who was finally able to struggle into a sitting position.

Colonel Mitchell, who had been crammed up against the ramp, rolled out with the Nones, coming to his feet to say, "Woo! That was a ride. Oh, I hadn't seen this yet," he added, staring around at the jumper racks. John reached for his radio again, but Ramirez appeared, ready to take back Mitchell's P-90 and sidearm. Still staring around at the bay, Mitchell seemed to barely notice handing it over.

As the Nones cleared out and they had room to maneuver, Beckett pushed to his feet, saying wearily, "I only ordered one gurney, so let me just get poor Gunther here loaded up and I'll send for another for Ronon."

Climbing around, helping Rodney and the other med tech get the stunned Gunther out of the jumper, John didn't realize who else was out in the bay until, over the excited voices of the Nones, he heard Mitchell say, "No, no, now, the general doesn't hug."

John froze, sharing a startled look with Rodney. "The General? What the hell is he doing back here?" Rodney whispered urgently.

John looked back to the cockpit where Markham was just climbing out of the seat. Keeping his voice low, he asked, "Sergeant, was General O'Neill here when you left?"

"No, sir." Looking worried, Markham crouched down to join them on the floor.

John tapped his radio and said, "Elizabeth," at almost the name time the channel came to life and he heard her say, "John."

It was at that point that they all realized the other person still crouched in the jumper with them was Dr. Jackson. John said, "Hold on a second, Elizabeth."

They all stared at Jackson and he lifted his brows, saying, "I don't know. I've been with you."

"Could you give us a minute, please?" John asked warily.

Jackson blinked. "Oh, sure."

John waited until Jackson had walked out of the jumper. Outside in the bay, John heard him say something inaudible, then O'Neill say clearly, "What do you mean, I'm wrecking your work? I just got here."

Keeping his voice low, John asked, "Elizabeth, why is O'Neill here?"

Her frustration came through clearly over the headset. "He wanted to talk in person again. He said that before he starts the interrogations, he needs to find out more about what Donner and the others did before the attack."

And Elizabeth was a diplomat, and found it hard to turn down a request to talk. And John couldn't think of a good reason to turn it down either, except for lingering knee-jerk suspicion. Markham looked worried, Rodney was going through a whole series of facial expressions and gestures indicating something catastrophic was probably going to happen, and the Runner was awake, blinking and watching them quizzically. John just said, "Right. I'll be down there in a second."

They all stared at each other again. Markham shifted uncertainly and said, "Is it going to be okay, sir?"

"Yeah, it's fine," John said, cutting off Rodney's attempt at a reply.

"You people live here?" the Runner asked, studying them doubtfully.

"Yes, we do," Rodney told him sourly. "Welcome to Atlantis."

Beckett ducked into the jumper again, rubbing his hands together briskly. "Right, let's get this young man down to the infirmary."

  
***

  
Cameron wasn't so sure O'Neill talking his way back into the city today was a good idea. He was feeling highly protective of his inroad, such as it was, and he didn't want it ruined. Fortunately, he didn't need to say anything, because Daniel said it all for him.

"Oh, come on," O'Neill told Daniel. "I just want to talk to Liz. I have three years of back paperwork on the expedition and I want her to help me with it."

"Uh huh." Daniel absently patted the shoulder of a None who had wrapped her arms around his waist. "Now why are you really here?"

They had a little staring contest while Mitchell steered the Nones away from O'Neill, though he couldn't bring himself to do anything about the little one that sat down at the general's feet. He surreptitiously searched the pockets of his borrowed tac vest, hoping there was a camera stashed in it somewhere as part of the standard equipment.

O'Neill finally said, "I need more intel on Donner." He waggled his fingers. "I got a hunch."

"A hunch," Daniel repeated thoughtfully. "But we've captured his entire crew."

"Yeah. They finally pried the manifest out of the _Iapetus_' computer and they're all accounted for."

He and Daniel stared at each other some more. Mitchell, not being in on the non-verbal communication loop, asked, "So how's the prison ship business going?"

O'Neill looked off toward the racks of stored jumpers, frowning. "We didn't have room for all of them, not without everybody breathing CO2 halfway back. We've had to lock up half of them on the _Iapetus_ with a prize crew to keep an eye on things." He gave them a grim smile. "But we got lucky. Where the _Daedalus_ has got cabins, labs, cargo, and the rec room, the _Iapetus_ has brig space."

Daniel's expression turned saturnine. "Oddly enough."

"Yeah," O'Neill agreed with a grimace. "General Hammond and I just couldn't get over the coincidence. Or the irony. We liked the irony better."

"Damn," Cameron muttered, turning to look back toward the jumper. Another gurney had arrived and a medical team was lifting the Runner's stretcher onto it. Sheppard, McKay, and Markham were standing with Teyla and Deona, who had come up from the gate room. Everybody else was too cool to let anything show, but he caught Deona throwing a worried look toward O'Neill.

They had figured the Trust meant to take a lot of the scientists prisoner; they didn't know what Donner had planned to do with the people he didn't see a use for. Though Mitchell could probably make a good guess.

O'Neill looked down, noticed the None at his feet, smiling happily up at him. "Oh. Hey there, little...person."

  
***

  
O'Neill had his meeting with Elizabeth in her office, and John couldn't help taking a look occasionally through the transparent wall. She had called Teyla in to join the discussion, and for the past hour or so the three of them had been talking intently and sometimes referring to Elizabeth's laptop. Elizabeth didn't give anything away, but John could tell just from looking at Teyla that her hackles weren't nearly as high as they had been when she had first gone into the room. John was starting to feel less like doom was imminent.

Or maybe it was just making sure the Runner was settled in the medlab, with a couple of guards in case he turned out to be crazy, and finally getting the Nones herded into the messhall to rest until they could pick a planet to go to. Halling had taken another shot at trying to persuade them to settle on the Mainland, but now he limped back up to the control gallery to tell John wearily, "They remain stubborn and determined on their present course. I cannot fault them for it, but...."

"But?" John prompted.

Halling admitted, "I have remembered that our store of wine was ruined in the attack on the settlement, and it will be next season before we can produce another batch." He winced. "I am not certain I can last that long."

"Jesus, I forgot about that." John rubbed his eyes. Talk about insult added to injury. Or maybe just injury added to injury. "We'll trade for some. I'll put it at the top of the priority list."

"Thank you, Major." Halling squeezed his shoulder gratefully before limping away.

John looked over the gallery. He had dropped off his tac vest and P-90, and, giving up on the whole uniform thing, left his jacket somewhere. After the _Daedalus_ left, maybe things would be normal for the next several weeks or so, with only the usual minor emergencies. He wasn't going to drive himself crazy worrying about the inevitable. If he was lucky, Bates would do that.

O'Neill had brought only Colonel Carter with him this time, and she was sitting at one of the stations, talking to Zelenka while Rodney typed on a laptop and yelled at various people over his headset. Jackson had been wandering in and out of the operations area, with an entourage of members of the archeology team, and Mitchell was leaning on the railing near Elizabeth's office.

John did a double-take, noticing Mitchell was also currently surrounded by Itasa, Calena, and a few of the other Athosian regulars. Nobody looked friendly. John rolled his eyes; Mitchell didn't look intimidated, but still. _Yeah, time to break that up._ He strolled over deliberately, hands in his pockets, and by the time he got there everybody discovered they had other things to do besides unsuccessfully terrorize unwelcome visitors. Except Itasa, who was actually supposed to be there, and who looked appropriately chastened.

Apparently finding the sudden departure of his assailants mildly hilarious, Mitchell asked John, "Was that an Ancient gene mind-control thing?"

"It's a 'somebody's going to need to clean the messhall bathroom when the Nones leave' thing," John said, smiling at Itasa. She winced.

"Ouch," Mitchell commented. "They're sweet people, but...yeah."

"Yeah." John added belatedly, "Thanks for your help, with the mission." It had occurred to him already that one reason O'Neill wanted Mitchell to stay here until the _Daedalus_ returned was because he was considering him for John's replacement as military commander. Or actually for Sumner's replacement. And maybe that wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.

"Glad we could be here to give you a hand," Mitchell said easily, "Oh, and look, I wanted to talk to you--"

He was interrupted when Rodney came storming down the galley, Zelenka right behind him. "We've got a problem," Rodney snapped as he passed.

John followed him, already feeling the headache start.

As they reached the main sensor station, Grodin looked up, his face set with worry. "It's the defense satellite." He turned the laptop so Rodney could see it. "We were running the diagnostics and one of the control relays failed."

"It has to be crystals," Zelenka said, his forehead creased with anxiety. "Fortunately we have spares, but...." His shrug was eloquent.

_Right,_ John thought. _The spares are down here, the satellite's up there._ He was aware of Elizabeth and Teyla coming out of the office to listen, though O'Neill and Mitchell hung back out of earshot. "Is this something we want to talk about in front of company?" he asked.

"Their Asgard sensors will be able to pick up the change in energy flow," Rodney said sourly. "They probably already know." He stared at the screen, his expression somewhere between intent and pissed off. John folded his arms, deliberately not demanding answers. They needed that satellite. Even if the _Daedalus_ wasn't a threat, the satellite was their first and best line of defense against hive ship attacks.

Finally Rodney grimaced and rubbed his eyes. "I'll need a jumper. And the space suits, and a tech crew to check out the space suits before we go up, and Simpson and Kusanagi down here for backup."

"Yeah. Crap." John pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to think. Getting into the airlock for the control cabin of the satellite meant a spacewalk, and clearing out the jumper so they could evacuate the air in the rear cabin. The Ancients must have had a better way of accessing the satellite, but the expedition had either never figured it out, or it required equipment that the Ancients had taken with them when they left the city.

John wanted to be the one to do the flying; the last time they had tried this, the maneuvering unit on Simpson's suit had stopped working and it had taken some delicate acrobatics with the jumper to retrieve her. He said, "At least it's in orbit and not fifteen hours away. What kind of timeline are we talking about here?"

Rodney's expression was getting increasingly constipated as he must have been contemplating all the difficulties. "It won't take more than an hour for the repair, but there's about ten hours of prep time, plus maneuvering the jumper into position, making the space walk, not dying during the space walk--" He shook his head, his mouth twisted. "And we need to test those suits. It's been months since we used them--"

"Is the interior of the satellite pressurized?" Colonel Carter asked suddenly. John twitched, startled; he hadn't noticed her edging up on them. He saw Deona and Ramirez start forward and caught their eyes, telling them with a slight headshake to stand down. Both stepped back.

Rodney was eying Carter with deep suspicion. "Yes. There's a large control cabin that allows access to the systems. Why?"

"You don't have to use the jumper and the M-suits," Carter said. "We can use the _Daedalus_ to beam you right from here to the station and back. It'll be much safer."

"Safer?" Rodney said, glaring at her. "To drop our shields, let you beam us around, to drop the shield on the satellite? How stupid do I seem, Colonel?"

"Rodney, for the--" She flung her arms in the air, angry. "Let me help you! We're talking about a dangerous job that takes hours of prep time! And those suits are what, three years old now and probably need a complete maintenance refit? Plus the wear and tear on one of your jumpers, and the stress on the crew, and the chance of accidents? You could turn a full twenty-four hours of dangerous exacting work into an easy forty-five minute repair. I'll go with you, if you don't trust me. Hell, while we're gone, you can keep Jack as a hostage."

General O'Neill had strolled up behind her to listen, and now pressed a hand to his heart, mock-wounded. "Carter. I'm touched."

She did a double-take, and waved one hand in apology. "Sorry, sir, but this shouldn't take long." She faced Rodney again, demanding, "So? What's it going to be? Are you going to be sensible or do it the hard way just to punish me for something I didn't have anything to do with?"

Rodney's face had been going steadily red and he was swelling up with what was going to be a really loud tirade. John caught Elizabeth's eye and read her expression. She started down the gallery toward the conference room. John said, "Let's talk," grabbed Rodney's arm and hauled him after her.

Teyla, Zelenka, and Grodin followed. Halling was already in the room, sitting at the table with Selana. They both looked up, surprised. They were working on the plan to rebuild the settlement, and their corner of the table was strewn with aerial photos of the Mainland, an open laptop, and a few leatherbound Athosian folios, the ones they had traditionally kept for their crop records and their trading information. "Is something wrong?" Halling asked, worried.

"We're going to have a quick meeting," John told him. He tapped his headset, "Bates, get in here."

Bates stepped into the room a moment later, and the panel doors automatically closed after him. Elizabeth folded her arms and said, "Rodney. Personal issues aside, is there any reason why what Colonel Carter is suggesting wouldn't be feasible?"

Rodney waved his hands, sputtering. "No, but--"

"But she's right about the suits," Grodin put in, concerned. "Our training in them was minimal to begin with, and we haven't had to use them for months."

"Of course she's right, but--" Rodney began.

"But do you trust her?" John asked.

"Yes! No!" Rodney shouted, "I don't trust anyone!" He made a vague gesture, apparently encompassing the city. "Except, of course, you people. Our people."

Teyla shook her head wearily. "Is it that different from allowing Dr. Jackson and Colonel Mitchell to accompany us on a mission? If they wanted to betray us, they could easily have done it then."

"Yes. It is different," Rodney told her pointedly. "Because the satellite is what gives us the upper hand, and they know it. Yes, we could fire on them with energy drones, but they could send ship after ship, just like the Wraith. It's the satellite that keeps this entire system safe."

Zelenka shook his head helplessly. "But do you really think this is some kind of plot?"

Rodney pressed his hand to his forehead. "I think if anyone had asked that question when the _Iapetus_ arrived, it would have been utterly ridiculous. A joke. A bad joke. I think if someone had asked me to name the most likely way for Ford to die, for us to lose eight people, that being executed in the gate room by a colonel in the United States military would not have been high on my list of options. That we'd all spend days watching Sheppard and Halling being tortured by people from Earth, in our own...." He ran out of steam abruptly and sagged, leaning on the back of a chair. He said weakly, "That's what I think."

In the silence that followed, John dropped into a chair, resting his head in his hands. Elizabeth stepped up behind him and squeezed his shoulders.

"I hate to admit it," Bates said slowly. "But I agree with Dr. McKay. We would have said it was impossible, but it happened. Are we going to say it's impossible again?" He added, "They don't have to be planning to take us prisoner or kill us. Maybe they just don't trust us and think it's in their best interest to take control of the satellite."

No one else spoke. John really wished he had gone through with it a year and a half ago, when he had given Elizabeth a resignation letter announcing his intention of retiring to the Mainland to farm toba root and make babies. Then at least he wouldn't have any part in this decision. Because Rodney and Bates were right. It seemed unthinkable that Samantha Carter was part of a plot to betray them, but it had seemed unthinkable that the rescue ship that had finally arrived from Earth was actually there to take the city by force.

After a long moment, Halling said, "To me, it seems we make the same decision every time we walk through the gate, every time we trust ourselves to the inhabitants of an unknown village or city. We have known betrayal before, but we continue to explore, to trust. Are we to give that up too? Stop looking for new ways to defeat the Wraith? Stop trading our medicines, which many depend on, stop answering calls for help from such as the Nones, and our other friends who look to us for protection?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. "When you put it like that...." Elizabeth said wryly. "I'll admit that I'm afraid. But Halling's right. In our position, we can't afford to let fear stop us."

"If we knew it was just fear," Zelenka said, and shrugged. "But if they help us, and all goes well, then there would be less uncertainty. It would be perhaps a better test than what we have already asked for."

"A more dangerous test, certainly," Peter Grodin admitted.

John got the part about fear. The thing Bates had said, about the SGC possibly thinking that taking control of the satellite away from Atlantis would be in everyone's best interest, was scaring the hell out of him. He said, wearily, "It comes down to this. I don't want you guys to use those suits. The damn things need repairs we can't make, you barely know how to use them, it's a miracle we haven't lost somebody in one already--"

"I know," Rodney said, sounding exhausted, "Believe me, I know."

"And when I asked you if you trusted Carter, the first thing you said was yes," John finished. "That was your gut reaction." He pressed two fingers to the ache in his temple. "That's all we've got to go on."

Rodney pulled a chair out and slumped into it. "I hate you," he said helplessly.

"Well," Elizabeth said slowly, her voice rueful. "Unless anyone has something else to add, I think we've made our decision."

  
***

  
Rodney had to admit, if Carter was part of a diabolical plot to destroy or take over their satellite, he thought she would have played it in a more professional and dignified manner. Clapping her hands together delightedly when he told her that he was accepting her offer was probably not the action of a woman engaged in a deadly deception. And then Daniel Jackson had turned to her, smiling, and said, "Sam, I'm so happy for you," and Rodney felt like an asshole for making her beg.

A minute later, of course, he was suspicious of her again. He couldn't help it. Rodney thought, not for the first time, that sometime in the past couple of years, he might actually have gone clinically insane, and no one had noticed because a) they were all insane too or b) they were used to Sheppard's behavior.

They were standing on the gate room floor now, nearly ready to go. Glaring absently at Zelenka, who was making some last downloads to the laptop, Rodney checked over his equipment one more time. Simpson had brought the spare crystals up from what was left of lab 3 and tested them to make sure none of the _Iapetus_ gorillas had screwed with the resonance or the power flow. Now she was just standing there with her arms folded, watching him, her mouth a flat worried line. Miko had so far forgotten herself as to tell him sternly to be careful, and to remind him that the satellite's interface was tricky and needed the extra translation routines she had written for it. "Yes, yes, yes," Rodney assured her tightly. "I know that, because I'm the one who told you to do it in the first place."

Carter came up to him, her face preoccupied as she listened to her radio. "Hermiod's verified that the interior is pressurized and has an adequate atmosphere." She smiled at Miko. "Oh, are you coming with us, Dr. Kusanagi?"

"No," Rodney answered for her. "She's young, and has a great deal of potential; we'd like her to live."

"Rodney." Carter gave him an admonishing glare, or tried to; she was apparently so excited about the satellite that it was hard for her to work up to real level of pique.

Rodney never had that problem.

O'Neill came down the stairs, and Carter tapped her radio again. "Hermiod, General O'Neill is ready to beam up."

One small mercy: Elizabeth had pointedly invited O'Neill to beam back up to the _Daedalus_ and at least he was going without protest. Carter raised her brows at Rodney, and he tapped his own radio, saying, "Grodin, lower the city shield for a beam-out."

  
***

  
Jack appeared in the _Daedalus_' beaming hold, feeling like he hadn't accomplished a damn thing.

Before leaving, he had taken Carter aside and cautioned her about getting too enthusiastic and not keeping the situation in mind. These people might need help, and some of them might be old colleagues, but it didn't make them any less dangerous. He had seen three Marines, two Athosian Amazons, and four of the techs working at the control stations twitch for sidearms when Carter had walked up unexpectedly on Sheppard and McKay. The fact that Sheppard hadn't shot her or let anybody else shoot her at least made Jack feel more confident about leaving her down there.

"Thanks for the lift, Hermiod." The Asgard gave him a little nod of acknowledgement. "Let me know if Carter needs anything."

"Of course, O'Neill."

General Hammond was waiting for him out in the corridor. "So, did you find out anything?" he asked.

Jack shrugged. "What I expected. Donner and his little band showed up and made nice. Until they stopped making nice." There had been a few subtle indications, especially where the _Iapetus_ crew's behavior toward the Athosians in the city was concerned. But there hadn't been anything concrete, nothing that had done more than make the expedition members annoyed, until the first shot had been fired.

Hammond nodded, unsurprised. "But nothing to support your hunch that Donner has some sort of backup plan?"

Jack winced. "No." But Hammond putting it that way had just given him a little punch in the gut. "But I'm missing something."

"We're missing something," Hammond corrected him. "I'm feeling a little uneasy myself. I've had a couple of people going through the _Iapetus_' databases, and Airman Ryan just notified me that she found a copy of one of my classified memos to you, where we were discussing how much cargo space to devote to supplies for the expedition, considering we had no idea if anyone was still alive here or not."

Jack nodded grimly. "Yeah, we figured they must have had someone on the inside in the SGC, passing them intel about our mission."

"In the SGC," Hammond repeated, his forehead creased in a frown. "You would think they'd try to send someone along."

"Yeah," Jack agreed.

Then they looked at each other for a long moment. Hammond's frown deepened. Jack swore and tapped his radio. "Teal'c, get down here. We may have a problem."

  
***

  
After O'Neill had beamed out, John went down to the gate room floor. Zelenka, Simpson, and Miko were crouching over the three laptops and cases of crystals and other equipment they had laid out and ready, making last minute checks. A little distance away, Colonel Carter was on a headset coordinating with the _Daedalus_. Rodney was just pacing between the two points, glaring randomly at people, in a way that usually meant he didn't have anything else to do at the moment besides go crazy. Testing the theory, John walked up and said, "How's it going?"

"Wonderful," Rodney said sourly. "Come to say goodbye?"

John nodded solemnly. "Yep. We'll miss you, and all that."

"Oh." Zelenka tucked a laptop into a bag, glancing over hopefully. "Can I have your room, Rodney? Is more convenient to the transporter than mine."

While Rodney stared in outrage at Zelenka, Simpson confirmed John's supposition by looking up from the case she was packing and saying, "I'm not convinced that this is the best solution, but he's being a complete bastard to Colonel Carter."

"Oh please, I am not." Rodney glared around at them all. "I am understandably...tense."

"It's going to be fine, Rodney," John said, like somebody who hadn't just been double-checking all their security points. He had been the one to push for this, but lowering the city shield for longer than the few minutes it took to beam in and out was making him crazy. And it was going to be just that much more fun when Grodin sent the command to the satellite to lower its shields.

"Fine, fine, yes, yes, I know." Rodney took the laptop away from Zelenka with a grimace.

Mitchell had wandered over to talk to Carter; John saw him ask a question and her shake her head in response, still listening to her headset.

Teyla came over to stand next to John, observing the preparations with a slight worried frown. "All is well?"

"So far," John told her.

Mitchell left Carter to wander over to them, saying, "Anything I can help with?"

Teyla eyed him for a moment, and John deliberately didn't intervene. If he was right, Teyla needed to learn to work with Mitchell sooner rather than later, but he didn't want to have to talk to her about it if he could avoid it. Then she lifted a brow at Mitchell, apparently ready to at least consider a truce. "If you are serious, there is much clean-up work still to be done in the living quarters and public rooms."

"Oh, I am serious." Mitchell began to tick off his accomplishments on his fingers. "I can carry crates, I can sweep, I can move furniture, I can baby-sit Nones, I can baby-sit babies--"

Carter looked up, her expression preoccupied. "Rodney, they're ready up top."

"Oh, joy," Rodney muttered under his breath, starting toward her.

John's headset crackled and Stackhouse said, "Major Sheppard? Do you have time for that status report on the main armory?"

John replied, "In a minute, they're about ready to go here." It would give John something else to worry about while the satellite repair was underway. "Just give me the short version. I'll come down and--"

And a crystal-white light washed out everything.

John had been in the Asgard beam twice before; up to the _Daedalus_ and back down to the Mainland; there was no mistaking what this was.

Then the hazy white light was fading around him, he could just see the gray metal walls of the ship, feel his ears pop from the pressurized air, but he was still trapped in that instant of paralysis just after materialization. Then it abruptly released him and he went for his sidearm, spinning around.

Something hit him in the chest, knocking him backward. He hit the floor, banging his head. He managed to roll over but his arms went numb and weak and he slumped to the floor, feeling the cool metal against his cheek. There was a spreading chill through his chest, stealing his breath, and he couldn't tell if he had been shot or stunned. Then he saw Teyla, crumpled on the floor just a few feet away, her head turned to face him. Her eyes were open and focused and full of anguish. Then the world turned dark and still and that was the last thing he saw.

  
***

  
Rodney whipped around, startled, just in time to see Sheppard, Teyla, and Mitchell vanishing in the white beam. His jaw dropped and he actually felt his brain shut down for an instant. "What, I don't--? What--?"

He heard a few startled exclamations; everyone was staring, blank with shock. Rodney turned to stare at Carter. For a moment he was reassured, because she looked so normal. Startled and annoyed at a mistake, a delay to their important task. She tapped her radio and said in irritation, "Hermiod, we weren't ready down here, and you got a fix on the wrong signal. You just beamed up--"

Then Rodney saw her face change, the sudden consternation, confusion. "Hermiod, do you copy?" she demanded. _No,_ Rodney thought in growing incredulity. _Just...no._ He keyed his own radio, saying numbly, "Elizabeth--"

Carter was saying, "_Daedalus_, please reply. Are you receiving--" when Rodney saw the first glow of the beam form around her. He took a stumbling step backward, even as Simpson yelled in alarm and Miko surged forward, grabbing his jacket and dragging him another step back, out of the beam's range. Then Carter vanished in the light and people were shouting up on the gallery, Bates yelling for Grodin to raise the city shield. "Oh my God," Simpson was saying in horror, "I can't believe, why did they let the Major go in the first place if they were going to--"

Zelenka, turning red with rage, flung his arms in the air. "Then we had working satellite! They had no choice! Oh, we are foolish, foolish--"

Miko's eyes were wide with shock. She looked up at Rodney. "But she didn't know! I was looking at her when it happened. She was surprised."

"I know," Rodney said, and heard how choked his voice sounded. _Sheppard was right. I did trust her. And I was right to trust her._ Carter would never participate in something like this, so O'Neill had taken advantage of her offer to help with the satellite, not telling her what the real plan was.

Then reality seemed to click back on. Rodney dropped his laptop into Miko's arms and bolted for the gallery. Elizabeth had a white-knuckled grip on the railing, her face set with shock and growing fury, telling someone on her headset to locate Daniel Jackson and put him under arrest. Grodin was saying urgently, "The _Daedalus_ isn't responding to our comm, there's some sort of interference--"

Rodney dashed past a horrified Deona, dragged Chuck out of his chair and flung himself down at the console. He had had the short-range sensors trained on both ships, tuned to account for their cloaking fields, set to alert at power build-ups that would indicate weapons or drive coming online. The beaming technology didn't use enough power to register, but it did leave distinct traces--

Deona hauled Chuck up off the floor, and Chuck said hurriedly, "The beams leave energy signatures, you can trace--"

"Shut up!" Rodney snapped, typing furiously on the laptop attached to the console.

"Is the satellite secure?" Elizabeth was asking. "If they--"

"We hadn't sent it the order to lower its shield yet, so they can't beam into it," Laroque answered hurriedly. "But--"

Rodney stopped listening, still keying in commands. The holographic screen responded with rapid diagrams of the energy readings in that orbital path, finally focusing in on the traces that led directly to-- "The _Iapetus_. The first beam came from the _Iapetus_." The second beam, the one for Carter, had been from the _Daedalus_. Rodney's stomach cramped in pure anxiety. The SGC hadn't told her the plan and they hadn't wanted her there on the _Iapetus_ where they had taken Sheppard and Teyla. _Because they're about to do something they think she might try to interfere with?_ he thought, feeling sick desperation press in on his chest. Bates was leaning over him, digging his fingers into the chair arm. Rodney said automatically, "They can't raise shields while the cloak is engaged, but we can't get to them, we can't...." He trailed off. "Wait."

"Wait for...?" Bates prompted tensely.

Rodney had a terrible idea. A fantastic terrible idea. He switched screens to the data he had compiled on both ships' defenses. "The F-302 bay is their most vulnerable point. I should be able to send a signal to open the bay doors from the outside; they'll be aware of it, but if we move fast--"

Bates was already on the radio, yelling at Markham to scramble a jumper. "Zelenka!" Rodney shouted.

"Here, here," Zelenka said, suddenly standing next to him with the laptop they had prepared for the satellite. "I will download files, you get ready!"

Rodney shoved to his feet. "You, you, you, and you," he picked Marines and Athosians at random from whoever was standing on the gallery. "Grab some friends and guns, lots of guns, and get to the jumper bay now!"

Still on the radio, Bates made a gesture that must be military sign language for "what he said" because they all bolted at once. Then Bates turned to Elizabeth, saying, "Dr. Weir, we need to make ready to fire on the _Daedalus_. They could--" when Grodin interrupted with a shouted, "Wait!"

Rodney turned impatiently. "What?"

"The _Iapetus_ is jamming the _Daedalus_' communications," Grodin reported tensely. "Ordinarily we wouldn't be able to tell, but with the fine-tuning you've done on our sensors, our equipment is picking up the jamming signal."

Rodney found himself staring blankly at Elizabeth. He said, "That doesn't make sense. The _Iapetus_ is under the control of the _Daedalus_."

Elizabeth shook her head. She looked pale and drained and very, very angry. She told Bates, "We'll hold our fire. For now. And get Jackson up here."

  
***

  
"Sir!" Carter shouted as she materialized in the _Daedalus_' bay. There was a world of outrage and indignation in the word. "What--"

"It's the _Iapetus_," Jack told her, buckling up his tac vest. "Bastards got loose."

Her eyes widened. "They beamed up Sheppard, Teyla, and Mitchell--"

Jack gritted his teeth. _Yeah, this just keeps getting better and better._ "We knew they got Sheppard, but not the others. Hermiod picked up the lock on his radio signal right before our comm was cut off." Hermiod had only managed to get Carter because he had still had a lock on her last known position. They were lucky he hadn't grabbed anyone else by accident.

"Dammit!" Carter clapped a hand to her forehead. "Mitchell and Teyla were standing near him; they must have been trying to get as many people as possible. They were probably going for Rodney too, but he was pacing around, and he wasn't on his radio."

Jack clipped the P-90 to his vest and said, "Novak, communications have any luck yet?"

Standing at her console, one hand on her headset, Novak winced. "No, sir. The interference still won't let them transmit." She explained to Carter, "We're trying to send a tight-beam signal to Atlantis, to tell them what happened, but the _Iapetus_ is jamming us."

"Oh my God," Carter said, appalled at the realization. "They must think--"

"Yeah, that's why I pulled you out." And Jack was glad he had. He had known having Sheppard yanked right out of their gate room would cause chaos down there. That the Trust had also managed to get one of the top ranking Athosians had been a lucky shot, and Mitchell vanishing too would just made it look that much more like a plot. There were too many edgy people down there and without Sheppard to keep them in line, he hadn't trusted them not to shoot Carter. The Trust had probably been counting on that to send the situation even further out of control. "Atlantis put the shield up right after we grabbed you, so we can't even beam down a written message." He had also thought of sending down an F-302, so the pilot could get close enough to the city to get out of the _Iapetus_' jamming range and try to radio through the shield. But if the pilot turned out to be another Trust agent, they were screwed, and if Atlantis took the fighter's appearance as an attack and destroyed it, they were screwed worse.

"What about Daniel?" Carter asked worriedly, moving to the sensor console to look over Hermiod's shoulder.

Jack grimaced. "He wasn't wearing a radio and we didn't have a clue where he was in the city. But he's talked his way out of worse than this." _Or so I keep telling myself._ He wasn't thrilled that Daniel was down there during all this, but he just didn't think Liz would go that far.

The door slid open and Teal'c strode in, already geared up, carrying Carter's tac vest and weapons. "I am glad to see you well, Samantha Carter," he said.

"You too, Teal'c. But how did the prisoners on the _Iapetus_\--" Carter began, shrugging into the vest he handed her. Then she winced. "Don't tell me: the Trust has agents in our crew."

"At least one," Teal'c told her. "O'Neill and General Hammond deduced his existence, and believed the most likely place to find him was among the crew members sent to man the _Iapetus_. But the agent must have already neutralized the other crew and released the prisoners, sometime after the earlier shift change. We were preparing to beam over, using your activities with the satellite as a cover, but they acted first."

Carter nodded grimly, buckling on her sidearm. "I take it we're beaming over there now. Just the three of us?"

Jack said sourly, "There's not that many other people on this ship I trust completely, and Hammond needs them to guard the prisoners and to man the bridge when the ship-to-ship shooting starts. That leaves Novak and Hermiod."

Apparently wanting to make it crystal clear that he wasn't here for combat duty, Hermiod looked up from his console and said, "I will remain here to monitor transport. I have already adjusted your comm devices so the Trust operatives will not be able to overhear your communications. Novak will defend this room from saboteurs."

Novak gripped her console, game but uncertain. Teal'c lifted a brow. Jack said, "Yeah. Let's go." He just hoped Daniel wasn't in over his head and that the Trust hadn't killed Mitchell out of hand. If they had killed Sheppard and Teyla.... Jack could shoot every damn Trust agent he could catch, but that wouldn't change anything as far as Atlantis was concerned.

  
***

  
John still couldn't move, still felt a heavy cold numbness in his chest. He had been dimly conscious of being lifted and dragged along a corridor, then dropped on another metal floor. As his brain started to work again, his first coherent thought was, _wow, they were right._ Everybody from his father to his high school football coach to a long succession of pissed off commanding officers. _I really do never learn._ And this was probably the wrong time to be having a personal revelation, considering he was about to be dead soon.

He thought he could hear the humming and muted beeping of a control area. Then he heard voices. But they weren't the voices he had expected to hear.

"We can't raise shields, we want all activity to appear to be coming from the _Daedalus_." That was Bergstrom, Donner's pet scientist and the closest thing he had had to an Ancient technology expert.

"If the _Daedalus_ fires on us--" That voice John didn't recognize, but Bergstrom had brought a whole crew of techs and other scientists with him that John hadn't seen much of. After the first few days, he hadn't seen much of anybody, unless they had been guarding his cell or helping Gaines "interrogate" him.

It still didn't make sense. _If the SGC was in league with the _Iapetus_ all along...they won't have to shoot me, I'll do it myself._

"If it fires, raise the shields. But they should be too busy dealing with Atlantis to worry about us."

John was starting to get sensation back in his fingers, enough to tell that his arms had been pulled behind his back and tied. From the feel of it, it was one of those plastic handcuff strips.

He cracked an eyelid cautiously. He was lying on his stomach, and had a view of a tangle of red-brown hair that had to be Teyla. The light was dim, and he could see the edge of a console and a big transparent blue-green screen, stretching from the ceiling nearly down to the floor. He heard some movement, figured there were at least three or four people in the forward part of the control area.

The next voice made him freeze into immobility again.

"Are you sure you're a scientist?" That was Mitchell. "'Cause your plan sucks." But his voice was slurred, as if he was waking up from a stunner blast. "I don't hear anything blowing up."

"It hasn't been long, Colonel." Bergstrom again, the smug bastard voice he used when Donner wasn't around. "I expect Elizabeth Weir will attempt negotiation, first. Of course, she won't be able to contact the _Daedalus._"

Mitchell said, "Your plan sucks, because we worked all this stuff out. They're going to know it wasn't us."

_Okay,_ John thought. _Maybe I'm not a complete idiot who asked for this._ He managed to turn his head a little. Mitchell's voice seemed to be coming from the other side of the screen. Squinting, he could see chairs and more consoles, a big port looking out onto a starfield. Somebody was standing up over there, but the screen blocking the way distorted his view just enough that he couldn't be sure who it was. Teyla moved, turning her head toward him. John waited until she blinked and focused on him, then he mouthed the words, "Still got your knife?"

Her gaze sharpened. He knew it was strapped around her right calf, and he was hoping Bergstrom's minions had assumed her sidearm was her only weapon. But she might not be able to feel yet if the sheath was still there. John couldn't feel his legs yet, just enough to know his ankles were tied. She shook her head slightly and mouthed, "I cannot tell."

Then footsteps came toward them. Teyla closed her eyes and slumped back to the floor just as Bergstrom stepped around the screen.

"Major Sheppard," Bergstrom said, standing over John. He sounded outwardly calm, but there was an undertone of shaky excitement that didn't bode well for the future. "It's very good to see you here."

"He's right, your plan sucks," John said, mostly because he wanted Mitchell to know how much he had heard. And Mitchell was right. With the fine-tuning Rodney had done to the city's sensors, Atlantis should be able to see things that didn't add up, like the comm jamming and where they had been beamed to. And if they could see it, they could come up with a plan. He hoped. He twisted awkwardly around onto his side to look up at Bergstrom. "McKay said you were a crappy scientist."

"I'm not worried about McKay's opinion," Bergstrom said, cooler than John would have given him credit for. He smiled a little. "I was actually hoping to catch him and some of the other science personnel, but he wasn't on his radio long enough to get a lock. However, you and the alien woman will do just as well."

John almost said "what alien woman?" then realized Bergstrom meant Teyla. "What alien woman?" Mitchell demanded. From this angle John could see him, about ten paces away on the floor just past the consoles. He was tied up too, hand and foot.

John said, "It's going to be hard to make threats when you can't let Atlantis know you're the one who's got us. You can jam the _Daedalus_' comm forever, but nobody's going to believe O'Neill suddenly made you his spokesman."

"I'm not going to make threats," Bergstrom said, studying John clinically. "When Atlantis recovers your bodies, they can draw their own conclusions."

  
***

  
"Elizabeth," Daniel said calmly. "You know we didn't do this."

"No, Dr. Jackson, I don't know that." She folded her arms, pacing the length of her office. Bates was waiting just outside the door, and through the transparent wall she could see Peter, Zelenka, Kusanagi, Simpson, Chuck, and the other members of the operations staff monitoring the consoles and screens in tense silence. Carson was out there too, pacing the gallery, and she knew there was an emergency medical team probably lurking in one of the access corridors to the jumper bay or the gate room, just in case. "I know that we accepted what seemed to be a generous offer of help, and now we're missing our military commander and the leader of the Athosians. As well as the other two members of SG-1."

"It has to be the Trust." Daniel regarded her steadily. "They have Carter and Mitchell?"

She hesitated, but if he was lying to her, there was nothing he could do with this information. "Colonel Carter was beamed to the _Daedalus_."

He nodded, relieved. "Elizabeth--"

She continued, "When we were discussing this, Sergeant Bates suggested that the SGC might take advantage of this situation to seize the satellite, believing it was in everyone's best interest to remove it from our control. That was our worst-case scenario. It never occurred to us that this would be seen as an opportunity to make this a hostage situation again--"

"You know the entire history of the stargate program, Elizabeth," Daniel said, intently focused on her. "Have we ever, has Jack ever, done anything like this before? Even in situations where there might have been some sort of justification for it? Atlantis was not a threat. There was no reason to do this." He watched her for a moment. "You know us, and you know we wouldn't do this."

She shook her head wearily. God, she hoped he was right. That he was telling her the truth, that he hadn't just been left out of the plan, the way Rodney and Miko both thought Colonel Carter had been. So far the only indication they had one way or another was that the _Iapetus_ still appeared to be jamming _Daedalus_' communications. Peter had said both ships had charged weapons and brought their drives online, but they hadn't dropped their cloaks to raise shields or fire. Peter had also said it was extremely unlikely either ship would realize just how much Atlantis' Ancient sensors could tell about their internal power flow while they were cloaked, and that they probably didn't realize how closely Atlantis was able to monitor their activities. And Daniel had no idea just how many times Elizabeth had been certain of people and situations, and how many times that certainty had been blown up in her face. "It's been three years, Daniel. Three difficult years. For Earth and for Atlantis. I don't know you anymore and you certainly don't know us."

His mouth tightened in acknowledgement and he looked down at her desk, lightly touching an Athosian prayer bowl. It had survived the enemy occupation of her office only because it was far less delicate than it looked. Daniel said slowly, "I know you must have a plan." He flicked her a rueful look. "I hope it doesn't involve blowing up the _Daedalus_."

Elizabeth checked her watch. "Not yet." That would depend on what Rodney and the others found on the _Iapetus._

  
***

  
"Carter," Jack whispered harshly into his radio, "Any day now."

Her voice came back through his headset. "I'm almost there, sir." The sir had a definite element of "shut the hell up, I'm busy."

Hermiod had managed to beam them through the _Iapetus_' cloak, into an empty corridor in the lower part of the ship. Or at least they had hoped it would be empty. Teal'c had managed to zat the two crewmen who had seen them before the men had reached the nearest comm unit. They were lucky that the Trust had apparently not managed to hand out personal radios yet. Also the _Iapetus_ was only half-manned at most; it had lost some crew in the fighting with Atlantis and all their officers and about half their technical personnel were in the _Daedalus_' makeshift brigs.

Jack's first goal was to disable the hyperdrive and they had made their way to the nearest power relay station for Carter to do the damage. She was in there now, with Jack and Teal'c out in the corridor to keep watch. "Teal'c," Jack whispered. This thought had occurred to him earlier but he hadn't had a chance to voice it yet. "The hyperdrive failure we had on the way out. Sabotage?"

"I think that is likely, O'Neill," Teal'c replied, his eyes not leaving his half of the corridor. "The alternative seems too much of a coincidence."

"You know, guys," Carter said over the radio, her voice testy, "We did check for that. It's not like it never happened before."

Teal'c glanced back long enough to lift a brow and Jack rolled his eyes. Yeah, she was having a crap day all right. "Just let us know when you're done, Carter."

A few minutes later, Carter popped out of compartment, tucking a tool back into her tac vest. "I'm done."

Jack checked his watch. That had taken longer than he expected and his gut said they were running out of time. "We're splitting up. Carter, you disable the main guns. Teal'c, find the guards from the _Daedalus_ and check the other brigs to see if they've got our people stashed there. We'll meet at the bridge access."

  
***

  
The strangest thing was that with the _Iapetus_ cloaked, they could only see it on the jumper's HUD.

Rodney glanced up again from the shotgun seat and swallowed hard. The space outside the viewport was an empty starfield, while the holographic display showed the blocky giant shape of the ship looming over the comparatively tiny jumper. It gave Rodney a fully justified feeling of superiority to know that Ancient cloaking technology beat Asgard cloaking technology hands down; too bad he couldn't enjoy it while experiencing extreme nervous anxiety. He said, "Careful, you're almost there."

"I'm on it, Dr. McKay," Markham said tensely, carefully adjusting the controls. Markham hadn't been a pilot until he had come to Atlantis and they had decided that everyone with the Ancient gene needed to learn to fly a jumper, whether they had any aptitude for it or not. Markham was better now than his early attempts, one of which had involved getting jammed halfway through a stargate, but that wasn't helping Rodney's nervous twitch. The jumpers tended to try to compensate for mistakes, so he didn't think it would let them run into the _Iapetus_ even if Markham over controlled it, but he would rather have Sheppard piloting. Probably the jumper would rather have Sheppard too, which didn't help.

From the jumpseats behind them, Benson asked, "What happens if we bump into it?"

"Perhaps we will explode," Deona said thoughtfully.

Markham threw a desperate look at Rodney, who snapped, "No one else is allowed to talk until we land."

There was the sound of people shifting in vague protest from the rear compartment, but nobody argued, including Stackhouse, who was technically in charge. The jumper edged closer, until the blue outlines of the bay doors filled the HUD. "I think that's it," Markham said tightly. "Any closer and we're going to bruise our nose."

"Right." Rodney already had the laptop tied into the jumper's interface. He accessed the jumper's comm system, and coaxed it into sending the signal that should trick the bay doors into opening. The ship's bridge would see it happen and shut the doors again, but that would be too late. He hoped.

The HUD showed a diagonal split growing between the doors. Rodney waited until the opening was just wide enough, then said, "Now, now, go!"

Markham pushed the little ship forward and it slipped smoothly inside. It was like stepping through the hatch of a cloaked jumper; suddenly they were hovering over a metal floor in a large bay, packed with rows of F-302 fighters, ready to launch. The jumper's cloak was still active, but the bay was empty. "Right." Rodney wet his lips. Unfortunately, tense as that moment had been, this was the end of the easy part. "Set it down."

Markham lowered the jumper gently to the empty space in the center of the floor. As the drive went into standby, he flexed his hands and let out a breath in relief.

Rodney didn't comment, since he could feel cold sweat dripping down his back. The HUD informed them that the bay doors were already starting to close. "Good," he said, shifting the laptop aside and climbing out of his seat. "We need to move. The bay is re-pressurizing automatically but it won't take them long to realize something's wrong."

In moments the jumper registered a high enough oxygen level and Markham lowered the ramp. Rodney, six Marines, and Deona headed through the racks of silent F-302s, making for the inner hatchway. Stackhouse was leaving Markham with the jumper and Itasa to watch his back. Rodney had left them the laptop in case the worst happened and they had to escape on their own. He had a PDA loaded with data on the _Iapetus_ he had taken from equipment the Trust scientists had left behind, which gave him a map of the ship's layout and vital systems.

The hatch to exit the bay opened when Benson hit the control and they slipped through, standing in an empty metal corridor. "Where to, Doctor?" Stackhouse asked, covering the passage with his P-90.

Rodney was already studying the maps on his PDA. There were too many places on the ship that prisoners could be held. And they couldn't chance the ship firing weapons or leaving orbit with them aboard. Rodney gritted his teeth and said, "We need to disable the weapons and drive first. There's a main junction for the power to the rail guns only a couple of corridors away." He remembered the security camera footage of the gate room and felt sick. But that was ridiculous; the SGC would want hostages, people they could exchange for control of the satellite. They wouldn't kill them in cold blood, they had no reason to.

Stackhouse hesitated an instant, probably going through much the same thought process as Rodney. Then he nodded. "Right. Let's go."

The corridors they passed through seemed oddly quiet, with just the hiss of the air system and an occasional beeping panel. But the SGC must not have many crew members on this ship, only what was needed to guard the _Iapetus_ prisoners. And surely they were still prisoners; Rodney was certain the ship to ship fighting before the _Iapetus_ had surrendered had been real. _They couldn't have cut a deal with the Trust,_ he thought sourly. Surely they weren't that stupid. The lifesigns detector caught the passage of a few people on the level above them, but that was all, until they reached the hatch into the power station. "There's someone inside," Rodney told the others in a whisper.

Stackhouse nodded a sharp acknowledgement and signaled Benson and Deona to stand ready. Rodney hit the hatch release and the door slid open.

Inside was a little room packed with equipment and banks of circuits. And there was Samantha Carter, crouching over an open console, wearing a tac vest and a P-90 and holding a screwdriver.

She looked up, startled. "Rodney!"

"Don't shoot!" Rodney snapped to Stackhouse and the others. Staring at Carter, he demanded, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm sabotaging their weapons systems, what does it look like?" she snapped back at him.

"I was going to do that!" he said, outraged.

"Dr. McKay, goddammit--" Stackhouse began.

"Right right!" He turned back to Carter. "I meant, what--"

She said impatiently, "There was a Trust agent in our crew, he came over here with the men sent to guard the _Iapetus_ crew and released them. They're in control of the ship now, they're the ones who beamed up--"

"Fine, fine, I've got it," Rodney interrupted. He wasn't an idiot, he didn't have to have the whole damn thing spelled out for him. "Do you know where they're holding Sheppard and Teyla?"

"I'm not sure, but we can--" She stopped, staring incredulously. "Wait, you believe me?"

Rodney glared at her. She didn't have to make a huge deal out of it. "Well, yes!"

She blinked. "Okay, then. I'm done here, let's go."

  
***

  
Mitchell thought, _stall, stall, stall._ He said, "Oh, now killing us just sounds like you're trying to get yourselves blown up. If you have a death wish, Dr. Bergstrom, you can give me a gun, I'll shoot you, and everybody else can just go on home." He was aiming that comment at the others on the bridge he could see, the two men and the woman who were manning the consoles. They looked battered and not a little desperate, but nobody seemed to want to leap up and change sides.

Bergstrom didn't twitch at the offer. He said, "I haven't decided yet what to do with you, Colonel." As he turned toward Cameron, Teyla twisted onto her side and pulled her legs up. Sheppard rolled so his back was to her and he could reach her with his bound hands. She pushed her foot into his palm, he ran his hand up under her pants leg, pulled out a knife, and rolled onto his back to conceal it. It was quick, silent, and lethally smooth, and it took Cameron an effort to drag his eyes up to Bergstrom's face. Nobody else had seen it; the sensor station was blocking the view of the rest of the bridge. Bergstrom was saying, "It would help if we could arrange to make it look as if you were killed by expedition members, but we'll have to wait for the right opportunity."

"What opportunity?" Cameron said, mostly randomly. He just wanted to keep the guy talking. Sheppard was trying to wriggle subtly, and Cameron knew he was trying to cut the plastic strip binding his hands without opening a vein. "You can't plant us on the _Daedalus_, and if you space us they're never gonna know--" Bergstrom pulled something out of his coverall pocket. It was a small base unit and headset, the kind the expedition used. Sheppard and Teyla had both been wearing one, it could have belonged to either of them. And Cameron suddenly knew exactly what he was going to do. _Oh, shit, no._

Bergstrom didn't look at him, and Mitchell had a moment to realize Bergstrom might not mind giving orders and building devices that killed people, but he was squeamish about doing it personally. Mitchell tried, "Look, look, just calm down. We can negotiate. Just don't--"

Bergstrom ignored him, motioning for the three men waiting behind the control area of the bridge. "Take the woman first."

"What?" Sheppard demanded. "What are you doing?" His eyes were flat and almost black in this light. Cameron could tell he hadn't managed to cut himself loose yet. Two men reached down and grabbed Teyla's arms, hauling her up. She struggled frantically and silently, her teeth gritted, but they dragged her away. Sheppard was struggling frantically too, had levered himself up a little and pushed back against a console to conceal the knife. "Bergstrom, what the fuck are you doing?"

Bergstrom followed the men to the bridge's exit, handing the third one the radio set. Turning back, he finally said, "Atlantis will be able to track the radio signal. When they find her body in this orbit, they'll have good reason to fire on the _Daedalus_\--"

Sheppard was yelling, "No! God, stop! Take me instead, if it's me they'll--" They were already dragging her out the doors into the corridor.

"You don't need to do this, Bergstrom," Cameron shouted, trying desperately to remember how far away the nearest airlock in this section was, how long they had. "For the love of God--"

"If Atlantis doesn't fire within the half hour, I'll try again with you, Major," Bergstrom said stiffly, ignoring Cameron. The fact that he wasn't enjoying this seemed to make it worse somehow.

"Dr. Bergstrom," the woman at the console said, "We just had a power fluctuation from the 302 bay."

Bergstrom started back toward the control consoles. He passed Sheppard, still writhing on the floor, not even glancing down at him. Cameron saw the moment when Sheppard managed to cut himself loose. Sheppard sat up, the knife whipped around; Bergstrom managed one choked off scream before he hit the floor. Then Sheppard was on top of him, pinning him to the floor, dragging Bergstrom's zat out of his holster.

The two crewmen shoved away from their consoles, leaping to their feet, clawing for their sidearms. The woman was smarter, hitting the comm and shouting for help. Cameron twisted, swinging his legs around and tripping the first man to lunge across the bridge. Sheppard shot the second man just as he was drawing his pistol, then the woman, then the one Cameron had knocked down.

Cameron managed to sit up on his knees as Sheppard rolled off Bergstrom and sliced the plastic binder around his ankles. Then he was up and cutting Cameron's bonds. Cameron said, "Go on, I'm right behind you!"

As soon as his hands were free, Sheppard slammed the knife handle, slick with blood, into Cameron's palm. Cameron spun around on his butt, sawing at the plastic band around his legs. He saw Bergstrom was still moving, desperation and pain etched on his face, trying to drag himself toward the closest unconscious crewman, toward the weapon still in his holster. Sheppard pushed to his feet, one arm streaked with blood where he had been cut freeing himself. He shot Bergstrom twice with the zat, pausing only to grab the second Atlantean radio set out of Bergstrom's pocket.

Cameron was on his feet and had a zat of his own by that point. Following Sheppard, he said, "The closest airlock is one level down, in this section and to the port side. If they weren't heading for that one-- Can you find her with that thing?"

Sheppard hit the door release and they were out in the corridor. He hooked the headset over his ear as they ran for the elevator. "Not unless she can answer--" He looked startled, sliding to an abrupt halt and tapping his headset. "Rodney?"

"What, they're here?" Cameron demanded, relieved. He assumed the answer was yes, because Sheppard was saying urgently, "Rodney, quick, four lifesigns, somewhere on the bridge level or just below, where are they?" There was a fraught moment, then Sheppard started toward the elevator again, saying, "Got it. Head for the bridge."

They had just stepped into the foyer when the elevator doors opened and half a dozen _Iapetus_ crew poured out.

Cameron and Sheppard fired, dropping the first few, but the return fire drove them back and down the cross-passage. Cameron stopped at the first corner, firing back down the corridor. He knew they really didn't have time for this. He yelled, "Just go, go, I'll cover you,"

Sheppard bolted away. Cameron kept shooting, just hoping he wasn't too late.

  
***

  
Jack heard noise up ahead from the next cross corridor, voices and scuffling. He reached the corner and snuck a look around it to see two _Iapetus_ crew dragging Teyla toward a hatch at the end of a short passage. She was bound hand and foot and still struggling hard. There was another crewman slightly ahead of them, and Jack didn't register where they were and what he was looking at until the third man hit the hatch release. He saw the little enclosed chamber on the other side, with the outer hatch and the port looking out into space, and thought, _oh, hell no._ Stepping around the corner, he dropped the P-90 and drew the zat.

The man who had opened the airlock's hatch was the only one with a hand free and a drawn weapon, so Jack took him first, one shot in the chest. The other two men dropped Teyla, reaching for sidearms. She twisted sideways as she fell, managing to kneecap one with her bound legs, and Jack shot both of them. He flung himself sideways at her shouted warning, and the pistol shot from behind slammed through his arm instead of his back. He hit the wall, turning, switching the zat to his good hand and firing to drive the shooter back down the corridor.

Jack eased back down the wall to a crouch, wincing as he tucked his throbbing arm into his lap. Teyla awkwardly worked her way over to him and he let go of his zat just long enough to put his belt knife into her bound hands. "You okay?" he asked her, covering the cross-corridor again. He could hear more of them down there now and knew they were pinned down. He didn't like having the airlock at his back; it was a little too convenient if the Trust managed to overwhelm them.

Wriggling a little as she sawed at her bonds, Teyla flicked him an odd look, but said, "I am fine, thank you."

She finished cutting herself loose and he told her, "Take the P-90." He figured there was about a one in ten chance that she would shoot him with it, but he couldn't keep their attackers off with one zat and a bum arm. She unclipped it from his vest and shifted over to help cover the corridor, and didn't shoot him, so he won that one. Then he let himself ask her, "Were you first?"

She looked puzzled, then abruptly realized what he meant. "Yes," she said hurriedly. "The others were alive when I was taken away."

Jack took a couple of shots down the corridor to give himself a moment. "Where--" he started to ask, then he heard alarmed shouting from up the other corridor, then zat and gunfire. An instant later, Sheppard's voice yelled, "Teyla?"

"Here, Major," she called back.

Then Sheppard catapulted into their little section of corridor, followed by another burst of gun and zat fire. He rolled to the opposite wall from Jack, coming up to return fire back down the cross-corridor, then he dropped to a crouch.

Jack felt things were looking up. He changed his question to, "Where's Mitchell?"

Sheppard said, "Up a level near the bridge. He was covering me so I could get down here." He threw a look back at Teyla. "He should have help in a few minutes. Rodney's here with a team."

Jack had figured Atlantis would get into this one way or another. He asked, "Snuck into the bay with a cloaked jumper?"

Sheppard popped up to shoot a couple of daring _Iapetus_ crew who tried to rush their position, then dropped back down again. "Yeah."

Jack's radio crackled, and Teal'c's voice said, "O'Neill, I have released the imprisoned _Daedalus_ crew members. We are approaching your position."

"Good, because we could use a hand." Jack saw Sheppard glance at him and said, "Teal'c's coming this way with reinforcements." He added, because this whole situation was a little embarrassing, "You may have noticed, we had one or two Trust agents in the _Daedalus_ crew."

Sheppard said, "You could make it up to us."

_Huh,_ Jack thought. "I still got a couple of cases of ice cream bars in the mess freezer I could let you have," he said, but somehow he didn't think that was going to do it.

Sheppard shot somebody else down the corridor. "I was thinking of this ship."

"What about it?" Jack said, pretending like he didn't get it.

"Just beam back to the _Daedalus_ and go."

Jack shook his head. He saw Teyla watching them with a furrowed brow. He said, "We need it to take these bastards back to Earth. There's not room in the _Daedalus_."

Sheppard gave him a look, his eyes opaque. "Oh, I can think of a solution to that."

"Maybe, but it's not worth it," Jack said.

"I don't have to kill them," Sheppard said easily. "I have plenty of planets to send them to. Some of them even have oxygen."

"It's still not worth it. And I'm speaking from experience, here." _Yeah, that's probably not going to work._ Jack added, "And Carter monkeyed with their hyperdrive to keep them in orbit. Your scientists aren't up to speed on current Asgard tech."

Sheppard shrugged. "We can always use another scientist, especially her."

Jack wasn't exactly sure where this was going, and that surprised him a little. To force the issue, he said, "It'd be a little hard to keep her prisoner, you can trust me on that one, too."

Teyla stirred uneasily, but didn't intervene. With a little heat in his voice, Sheppard said, "We don't keep people against their will. What do you think she'd say to her own Ancient tech lab and gate team? And this is a big galaxy. If there's anything else she wants, we can probably get it for her."

Jack could see the temptation. Carter would think that with extra time here, she could talk Sheppard and the others back into the fold. And there was an awful lot here of what Carter had always wanted. As a tactic, it was a damn good one. And Sheppard was smooth, he hadn't made the mistake of looking at Jack to see if he was buying it. "Yeah, all that aside, she didn't wipe the onboard databases, and you know McKay and his bunch can teach themselves how to fix an Asgard hyperdrive in the time it'll take me to make the clock on my DVD player stop blinking. You just want me to get out of here in a hurry. What's next, an offer to send Daniel back once I beam over to the _Daedalus_?" Jack shook his head. "If you really wanted this, you'd have shot me already."

"I don't want to shoot you, general," Sheppard said, and though his voice was flat, Jack believed him.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He had that feeling again, like he was trying not to startle a wounded and potentially dangerous wild animal. _This could still go either way._ He thought about leaving, letting things calm down, and trying again on the next trip out. He didn't give a shit about what happened to the Trust operatives on this ship; they had asked for whatever they got, and Donner and the others he really wanted to see go to trial and rat out their buddies back on Earth were still locked up tight on the _Daedalus_. But there was no telling what he would find when he came back.

Atlantis might decide that they couldn't risk the contact with Earth again, not without facing arrests for taking the ship. And it would be damn hard for Jack to explain what had happened to it. There were too many crew members he didn't know well enough to tell if they could be suitably vague in their testimony or not. And then there was Hermiod; Asgard were lousy liars. No, he had to stop this now, before it went any further. He said, "I'm not going to bargain with you, 'cause I can't give you proof I'll come through. But even with everything you've accomplished in the city, you know how much your people need supplies and reinforcements, and you know how much some of them still want to see Earth again, see their families again, even if it's just for a visit. And without a shiny new Asgard hybrid to make up for the disappointment, I don't think you'll take that chance away from them."

He saw Sheppard look away, his whole body tighten. Jack was pretty sure that did it.

Then Teal'c and the freed _Daedalus_ crew arrived, just before a group of Atlanteans showed up with Mitchell and Carter, and even in all the chaos of the battle, nobody managed to shoot the wrong person.

  
***

  
There was a lot of confusion and Rodney lost track a little, and Sheppard seemed to want them to get off the ship right that second, so they were going. Carter, out of breath and sweaty from the running and shooting, stopped Rodney briefly to say, "I'll call you about the satellite as soon as I get done here."

Rodney said, "Right, I'll have my people ready," and it was so like nothing had happened, that they weren't standing in a corridor strewn with stunned and dead Trust agents, that they both stared at each other for a moment, until Rodney smiled and she laughed. Then O'Neill bellowed at her to come disarm a bomb a Trust scientist had set, and everyone was moving again.

They reached the jumper without anyone trying to stop them, which was a nice change. Not certain if anybody was manning the bridge yet and not wanting to wait, Rodney got the bay doors open again with his laptop and Markham guided them out without incident. Then Rodney got up to see what was going on in the back, because it was a little too quiet.

Sheppard was sitting on the bench. He still looked like he had when Rodney had reached him on the ship, feral and too tightly controlled, with something brimming right under the surface, rage or frustration or both. The others could see it too, because the Marines were all trying to act submissive and the women were just gazing at him with big worried eyes. Teyla was sitting next to him, but she looked hesitant, like she had no idea what to say, and that made Rodney's chest constrict. If Teyla was at a loss...that was never good. He said, "Move," and stepped on the first two Marines who didn't scramble out of his way fast enough.

He sat down next to Sheppard in the space hastily cleared for him and said, "What happened?"

Sheppard looked at him, giving Rodney the "are you crazy?" stare. His eyes were intent and very green and flat, like they got when he had been killing people who were too stupid to run away when they had the chance. He said, "You were there."

Rodney saw Teyla, sitting on Sheppard's other side, give a slight shake of her head. That was definitely "don't ask." He just hoped there was an "I'll tell you later" there somewhere. "Fine, whatever," Rodney said. Sheppard's right arm was streaked with blood, his black wristband soaked with it. Rodney reached for it and Sheppard jerked away.

"Yes, your level of testosterone impresses everyone," Rodney snapped. "Now let me bandage your arm before you bleed all over us." He thought it was a reaction to being touched rather than anything else. Sheppard looked down at his blood-streaked arm and frowned, as if he hadn't noticed it before.

Rodney snapped his fingers and Ramirez opened a medical kit, holding it so Rodney could reach the contents. He took Sheppard's wrist firmly and wiped the blood away with an antiseptic pad, relieved to see it was just a few superficial knife slices and not a bullet wound. His skin felt fever hot.

By the time he had finished with the gauze and tape, Sheppard had tilted his head back against the bulkhead, his eyes closed. Teyla was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder, the Marines were breathing again, and Deona and Itasa were curiously examining the zats they had picked up on their progress through the ship. Rodney said, again, "What happened?"

Sheppard shook his head, and when he opened his eyes he just looked exhausted. "Nothing. It's okay."

Rodney snorted in disbelief, but didn't press it. Up in the cockpit, he could hear Markham asking Atlantis Flight Control to drop the shield and let them in.

  
**Epilog**

  
"I know nothing I can do can make up for what happened," Jack said, standing with Elizabeth Weir on Atlantis' control gallery. A little time with the fancy Asgard medical equipment on board _Daedalus_ had mostly fixed the gunshot wound in his arm, though he wouldn't feel much like pitching softball for the next few days. "So I had them beam down all our ice cream bars. And when we come back, I'll trade you Carter for Mitchell." Jack figured it was really time for them to go. Liz looked exhausted, and the operations staff, Marines, and Athosians on the gallery looked just this side of shattered. Once the _Daedalus_ left orbit, he hoped they locked the city down and slept for a week, but somehow he figured in Pegasus, you didn't get many opportunities for time off. He checked his watch. Carter and McKay should be wrapping up the satellite repair, and once that was done, they could go.

Elizabeth smiled indulgently. "Thank you, Jack. I appreciate the thought."

Daniel was hanging around on the gallery, so after saying goodbye to Liz, Jack strolled over to ask, "So, you still staying?"

"Yes," Daniel said, drawing the word out long enough to communicate what a stupid question it was.

Jack sighed. "Well, keep an eye on Mitchell. You know what he's like."

Daniel gave him the lifted brow of amusement. "We'll be fine, Jack."

Teyla walked up to them then, regarding Jack for a moment. "I wish to thank you for saving my life," she said with gravity, then allowed herself a small wince. "It was not a way I would have chosen to die."

"Me neither," Jack admitted. "Thanks for not shooting me when you had the chance."

Teyla blinked, and Daniel interposed, "He means 'you're welcome.'"

"Hey, I don't need an interpreter," Jack told him.

She gave Daniel a tilt of her head in acknowledgement, and assured him, "I am accustomed to your people's occasionally rather odd means of expressing themselves." She eyed Jack, adding deliberately, "I am not so sure I should thank you for the other thing you did."

"The ship thing?" Jack shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. Talking Sheppard down from outright mutiny, she meant. He could see from her perspective that renewed contact with Earth might be a scary prospect, and he couldn't blame anybody but Donner for that. But he didn't have any other way to prove otherwise right now. "Yeah, well, that's going to work out for the best." His mouth quirked. "Trust me."

Teyla gave him an eyebrow lift. "Perhaps."

Daniel watched her walk away, frowning absently. "What ship thing?" he asked.

"I'll tell you when we get back," Jack said.

  
***

  
John had had a lot of last minute things to take care of before the _Daedalus_ had left, and he was a little shocked he had managed it. They had already beamed up the coffins containing the remains of Ford, Dr. Baroukel, Ivers, Danson, and Petersen, but John had still had to get the Marines' personal effects together and write letters to the families. He had meant to get it all done earlier today, but getting taken prisoner again had interrupted his plans. Bates had stepped in to take care of the effects, which was handy, because when Selana and Deona had shown up on the control gallery with a knitted shawl for Ford's grandmother and other gifts they wanted to send along to the other men's families, John had been able to duck into the conference room and tell Atlantis to lock the door, thus avoiding Bates' subsequent breakdown. Luckily there was a laptop in the room, so John could work on the letters, which gave him a reasonable excuse when people kept knocking on the door and calling him on the radio trying to get him to come out.

But it was all finished now, and the _Daedalus_ would be transporting the bodies of the newly dead, as well as the dogtags, the personal effects, and all the letters for families that he and Elizabeth had been keeping in a file for three years. John and Bates had even been able to stand in the gate room in a close approximation of military protocol when O'Neill, Carter, and Teal'c beamed up for the last time.

After that, it was getting time for evening mess, and there was apparently a plan to break out the newly arrived cases of ice cream bars. The supply master had reported to John that he had scanned them and taken a few samples to Biology for testing, and that Biology had okayed them and then claimed to have lost the remaining portions of the samples, and Ancient Tech and Botany had already filed formal complaints accusing Biology of hoarding. Fortunately, Linguistics and Archeology were apparently taking the high road and ignoring the situation, possibly due to Dr. Jackson's influence. So John was completely behind the plan to just let everybody fight over the damn things at dinner tonight. If he had to deal with arguments over supplies in the next few days he was going to the South Pier to become a hermit.

Which reminded him that he needed to deal with his quarters situation, or at least stop by and try to find a t-shirt for tomorrow. It was either that or borrow a set of scrubs and move into the infirmary permanently.

On the way down he passed the mess hall, and found Ronon, the ex-Runner, standing out in the corridor, looking through the archway into the big room. A lot of people were already there, sitting at the tables and talking, and the kids were playing and the Nones were milling around. Ronon looked a little freaked out; not in a psycho way, but in a way that suggested he wasn't used to this kind of thing, noisy people and kids and the big "we're not dead yet!" party that seemed to be brewing. But there was no telling how long he had been running. John remembered that Ronon had tried to warn them away, had been afraid for the Nones, so the chances were good that he had been conscientiously avoiding people, trying not to lead the Wraith to anybody. John also remembered that he needed to talk to the guy, another task the certain death phase of the day had interrupted. He stopped and said, "Hey. How's it going?"

Ronon looked at him for a moment, then nodded toward the two Marines standing nearby. "Guards?"

"It's standard procedure, for folks we don't know." John scratched his head, trying to think how to explain. He finally just said, "People try to kill us a lot."

Ronon nodded, like the explanation made sense, though his expression stayed neutral. "You people were at war?"

"Well, yeah," John admitted reluctantly.

"With who?"

"We thought it was our home planet, but it kind of wasn't, and then it got complicated." John rubbed his tired eyes. He really didn't want to get into this at the moment. "So, they said you want to go back to Sateda?"

Ronon nodded. Beckett had reported that from what little Ronon had said, Sateda had a fairly high level of technology for Pegasus and had been trying to fight the Wraith. It also seemed to have a fairly cosmopolitan attitude and contact with a lot of other cultures through the gate. It sounded like a good possible prospect for an alliance, or at least like it might be another good market for toba root and goats. But this was all before the culling that had taken Ronon; he hadn't had any contact with the planet since.

"Okay." John looked at his watch, trying to get his thoughts organized. "We're resuming normal operations at 0600 tomorrow. You can go first." That would leave the rest of the day for sorting out the Nones' travel plans. "We'll send a MALP through, make sure it's safe."

Ronon regarded him for a moment, not quite suspiciously. "Just like that."

John shrugged. "Sure."

"Why?"

John thought about trying to explain the expedition's goals and the whole peaceful explorer thing, but he had always been crap at that. He just said, "Why not?"

Apparently that was the right answer, because Ronon studied him for another long moment, then he shrugged too. "Okay."

John nodded, and headed down the corridor. When he got to the living quarters section, it was bustling with pre-dinner activity, as if people had spent the day at their normal work and not putting the city and the labs back together. As John headed down toward his room, Rodney joined him, asking, "Is this ice cream bar rumor true?"

John said wearily, "Biology took six bars, out of the four whole cases O'Neill sent. Get over it."

Rodney humphed in an aggressive way, but changed the subject. "Are you going to dinner?"

"I don't know." John shrugged. He had no idea how long it would take him to find a shirt, and as long as he was here he might as well try to put his bed back together and check the nearest supply closet for intact sheets. And if everybody else was in the mess hall except the duty shifts, he might have a decent shot at one of the Ancient laundry machines.

"You don't know?" Rodney demanded, apparently shocked. "Did you already eat? No, of course not, you don't eat. You've been living off Carson's IVs for three years."

"I haven't had an IV in two days," John said, annoyed, and wishing people would stop asking hard questions like "who was the war with" and "are you going to dinner." He reached his quarters and the door slid open automatically, and for a moment he thought he had stopped at the wrong room. This one was clean, with no debris, and there was a red-striped Athosian blanket on the neatly made bed. Then he saw the crates he had been using as a filing system stacked against the wall in their old spot, and the Johnny Cash poster above the bed, creases flattened and tears repaired. His battered copy of _War and Peace_ was on the storage case that was doing duty as a bedside table. He stepped inside, suddenly numb.

Rodney was talking: "--and apparently Archeology has someone who used to do restoration for the Chicago Oriental Institute, so the poster-- And Teyla thinks they found most of the files-- That's a spare laptop from Operations. Elizabeth thinks yours was probably destroyed; if they ever had to justify their actions, they may have had some idea of making a case for mutiny or framing you for something, and three years worth of reports and paperwork showing that the military contingent was operating according to our mandate and the SGC's directives wasn't exactly conducive to that. I did find a backup on the server, so you probably only lost a few days worth of memos." Rodney was watching him uneasily now. "I told them we should just tell you about this, that you had had more than enough surprises lately but they wanted--"

The table was the same one John had had before; it was Ancient and had apparently survived being thrown across the room. It had a new expedition desk lamp and the laptop on it, and a little Athosian bowl that had been used to collect the broken strings of Tasiben beads that John had last seen strewn all over the floor.

Rodney was still talking. "--I just wanted to make sure you aren't going to bolt off and lock yourself in somewhere again, are you, because frankly, it was horrifying enough when Bates--"

"Um, yeah," John managed.

"Yes what?" Rodney asked uneasily. "Locking yourself in, or--"

"Yes, I'm going to dinner."

  
***

  
The mess hall was a hopping place tonight, Cameron thought. He understood it wasn't usually this busy, but with most of the expedition here, all the Athosians, assorted tribes of wild children, and Nones, the place was bursting at the seams. He was strolling along the outer wall by the big windows, caught by the view of the nighttime sea and the city, when he saw Sheppard out on the balcony alone. Before he could decide if he should intrude or not, the glass doors slid open for him. He snorted. If Atlantis thought he should go out there, well, who was he to argue. He stepped out onto the broad balcony.

The wind was cool and so fresh it almost hurt. Cameron moved to the railing and leaned on it. The two moons were up, casting a white glow over the water, and the city lights on the towers below were soft, all the way out to the triangular jut of the massive pier. _Yeah,_ Cameron thought, _Everything else aside, this is a nice place._ He said, "Well, I wanted to talk to you about how I'm just an observer and Jack assigning me here temporarily is not an attempt to interfere in your chain of command, but after the past few days that all seems kind of redundant."

"Does it," Sheppard said; it wasn't exactly a question.

"Sure." Cameron shrugged. He really wished for a beer, but according to the people he had asked, the Trust had wrecked the only booze supply, which was just typical.

"So you're just going to be taking command when I leave," Sheppard said.

Cameron frowned, still thinking about beer, and not sure he had heard right. "What? You're leaving? What?"

Sheppard eyed him for a moment, his sharp brows drawing together. "You're not my replacement?"

Cameron stared at him, aghast. "What? No! No, no, no, no, no. Uh uh." He tapped the SG-1 patch. "You know what I went through to get that? They'll take it off my cold dead body. Or, you know, when I retire."

Sheppard shook his head, apparently genuinely floored. He said incredulously, "If it isn't going to be you-- So why did O'Neill want you to stay?"

"Because he's training me as his replacement. He dumps me in these situations to see how I handle it." Cameron tried to get back to the important point. "What, you don't want to stay?"

Sheppard shifted to face the busy mess hall, his back against the railing, looking at the people inside. "The only reason I'm here at all is because I had the gene, and Sumner was here to keep me in line. Nobody figured on him getting his life sucked out and me shooting him on the first day. And whoever takes over isn't going to want me as a 2IC." He turned away, looking out over the water again. "God, I've been stupid. I just assumed it would be you."

Cameron took a deep breath. He felt like he should have seen this coming. But really, in presenting a facade of slightly nutbar inscrutability, Sheppard could give O'Neill a run for his money, and that was saying a lot. "Look, one thing I do know is how fucking vital you are and have been to this expedition. Now I can't read Jack's mind, but I sure didn't get the impression that he was unhappy with your performance." He thought it was a lot more likely that Jack would be scourging the SGC for somebody with the guts to be Sheppard's 2IC. That was going to be fun. _Yeah, it's a posting in another galaxy, your CO can control parts of the city with his mind, and your subordinates will include fanatically loyal native commandos and some scary-ass Marines who will frag you if you look at him the wrong way. Oh, and watch out for the scientists, they all have PTSD and they'll kill you too._ "The General's not a shy man, and if he thought you were a fuck-up, he would have said so."

Sheppard was quiet for a long moment. "I was going to keep the _Iapetus_."

Cameron really wished for that beer. He said, "Space pirates. Cool." He turned over all the implications, one of which was a permanent break with Earth. "But you didn't."

Sheppard shrugged. "O'Neill talked me out of it."

"Yeah, he's good at that." _Thank God._ And Sheppard evidently hadn't taken a moment to discuss his reassignment concerns with Jack, but still hadn't taken the ship, even though he thought he was going to be replaced as soon as the SGC could manage it. That had to be a good sign. "That aside, you really think these people would let Earth take you out of here, just like that? That the Athosians are going to get the subtle difference between kidnapping and reassignment? That Weir would let it get that far? If they took you, those Marines would go too, 'cause they sure as hell aren't going to want to serve here under somebody who has no idea what they've been through and who doesn't have three years of experience fighting Wraith. And I get the feeling most of the scientists wouldn't want to bet their lives on a newbie commander either." He waved a hand, getting to the heart of the situation. "Besides, who the hell would they replace you with? I tell you, there's two officers who have the kind of experience integrating alien and human populations that this place needs, and that's Hammond and O'Neill. O'Neill's busy doing it on Earth and Hammond's been trying to retire for two years. If they hadn't offered him a starship and a chance to find this expedition, he'd be home playing with his grandkids. No way."

"You're sure about that," Sheppard said noncommittally, and Cameron could practically sense him drawing away. Either he didn't believe it, or it had been preying on him so much, the relief was a little too much for him to take in right now. Or more likely both.

"Yeah, I'm sure about that, but don't listen to me, nobody does." Cameron stepped back from the railing. "Come on, I'll buy you a beer."

Sheppard said, "I wish," but pushed away from the railing and followed him back into the city.

  
**end**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Recovery [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/373449) by [Lunate8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunate8/pseuds/Lunate8)




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